'Figurae: READING MEDIEVAL CULTURE READING MEDIEVAL CULTURE

HISTORY

Images of the Medieval Peasant

PA U L F R E E D M A N

The medieval clergy, aristocracy, and commercial classes tended to regard peasants
as objects of contempt and derision. In religious writings, satires, sermons, chroni­
cles, and artistic representations peasants often appeared as dirty, foolish, dishonest,
even as subhuman or bestial. Their lowliness was commonly regarded as a natural
corollary of the drudgery of their agricultural toil.
Yet, at the same time, the peasantry was not viewed as "other" in the manner of
other condemned groups, such as Jews, lepers, Muslims, or the imagined "mon­
strous races" of the East. Several crucial characteristics of the peasantry rendered it
less clearly alien from the elite perspective: peasants were not a minority, their
work in the fields nourished all other s�.Kial orders, and, most important, they were
Christians. In other respects, peasants could be regarded as meritorious by virtue
of their simple life, productive work, and unjust suffering at the hands of their ex­
ploitive social superiors. Their unrewarded sacrifice and piety were also sometimes
thought to place them closer to God and more likely to win salvation.
This book examines these conflicting images of peasants from the post-.
Carolingian period to the German Peasants' War. It relates the representation of
peasants to debates about how society should be organized (specifically, to how hu­
man equality at Creation led to subordination), how slavery and serfdom could be
assailed or defended, and how peasants themselves structured and justified their
demands.
Though it was argued that peasants were legitimately subjugated by reason of
nature or some primordial curse (such as that of Noah against his son Ham), there
was also considerable unease about how the exploitation of those who were not
completely alien-who were, after all, Christians-could be explained. Laments
over peasant suffering as expressed in the literature might have a stylized quality,
but this book shows how they were appropriated and shaped by peasants them­
selves, especially in the large-scale rebellions that characterized the late Middle
Ages.
FIGURA£: RE ADING MEDIEVAL CULTURE

PAUL FREEDMAN is Professor of History at Yale University

· Jacket illustration: A tree representing the social estates. Woodcut engraving by the Petrarch
Master. From Petr-arch, Von der Artzney bayder Gluck (Augsburg, 1532), fol. 17r. Reprinted by
permission of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, Spencer
Collection, New York City. Photo credit: Robert D. Rubie, New York City.
 Images
of the Medieval
Peasant

Paul Freedman

Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1999

 Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
'Er Bonnie, as always

© 1999 by the Board of Trustees of the

Leland Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
CIP data appear at the end of the book
 Preface

In preparing a study of how peasants were represented in the Middle Ages, I

have solicited and exploited the advice and knowledge of many scholars. My
experience with Iberian rural history was the stimulus to ask questions about
how peasants might be simultaneously despised and yet thought of as partic­
ularly close to God. In expanding the scope of my inquiry to the rest of Eu­
rope, and in attempting to use literary, religious, and artistic sources, I have
trespassed, probably rather awkwardly, on new fields. I have been saved from
· many errors; but, insofar as mistakes persist, they are my fault rather than the
fault of those who so generously shared their expertise with me. This formu­
lation of gratitude, although conventional, is particularly meaningful to me
in attempting a larger subject than those I had previously undertaken.
I would first like to thank Gabrielle Spiegel, David Nirenberg, John Fried­
man, Yuri Bessmertny, Peter Haidu, and Te6filo Ruiz, who read through the
manuscript at various stages and offered suggestions to change not only par­
ticular passages but the order in which the argument of this work is con­
structed. My Vanderbilt colleagues Larry Crist and Joel Harrington also read
substantial portions in manuscript. Professor Crist pointed me toward more
up-to-date use of French literary evidence, and Professor Harrington offered
me extremely valuable advice in the areas of German history and the history
of spirituality. Helmut Smith and Michael Bess, also of Vanderbilt's History
Department, provided comparative information and insights.
An especially large debt is owed to Yuri Bessmertny, whose work on the
peasants as viewed by the chivalric class was an early inspiration to me. Giles
Constable introduced me to many key works on the subject, including espe­
cially those of Bessmertny and Jonin. This project was first conceived during
the academic year 1986-87, which I spent at the Institute for Advanced Study,
and I retain not only happy memories of that period but a strong sense of
 Preface x
gratitude for Professor Constable's advice and encouragement then and over
the intervening years.
I thank David R. L. Heald of the University of Kent for his permission
to use and to cite his University of London dissertation The Peasant in Me­
dieval German Literature: Realism and Literary Traditionalism, c. n50-I400,
which was invaluable to me for its discussion of favorable and unfavorable
representations of peasants. Elizabeth Traverse generously allowed me to see
her doctoral dissertation on the Neidhart poems in advance of its publication,
as well as a conference paper on peasant violence in these poems. In my pre­
sentation of the complex questions of attribution and interpretation she cor­
rected numerous mistakes that arose from the popularity of Neidhart and the
consequent proliferation of his imitators.
For their help with material from Hungary I owe a large debt to Janos
Bak and Gabor Klaniczay. Their work on the Hungarian rebellion of 1514 and
its background has been of vital importance to me. They shared their knowl­
edge and pointed me in the direction of understanding a literature with which
I was previously entirely unfamiliar. The late Father Gedeon Gal, 0.F.M.,
Paul Spaeth, and Rega Wood also helped me with the sermons of Oswald of
Lasko, the head of the Hungarian Franciscans in the period leading up to the
Hungarian peasant war. For material regarding medieval Bohemia, I thank
Lisa Wolverton.
In the fields of art and English literature, and for all manner of medieval
lore involving peasants, I am greatly indebted to Michael Camille and John
Friedman. They offered me aid at several points in this long project. It will
become quickly obvious to the reader how much I owe to their books and ar­
ticles on representations of peasant labor and character and on connections
among the various ways of describing outcast peoples and their origins. I am
also very grateful to John Plummer, Steven Justice, Thea Summerfield, and
Douglas Moffatt for their insights and advice with regard to English literary
and historical texts and to Liana Vardi, whose work on peasant labor in early
modern art has been inspirational. Ellen Kanowitz and Robert Baldwin made
several important suggestions and referred me to other studies of sixteenth­
and seventeenth-century art and the styles of portraying rural life.
For assistance with Hebrew texts, especially those concerned with Noah's
curse against Ham, I thank Alexandra Cuffe!, Steve Benin, and Benjamin
Braude. The latter was also kind enough to share with me his research on me­
dieval travelers and geographers. Philippe Bue aided me with regard to Bibli­
cal commentaries and their political and social implications. Phyllis Roberts
helped me greatly with sermons and the work of Stephen Langton. Susan
Reynolds has offered useful advice and careful reading of my work over many
Preface xi
years, but I am especially grateful for her generous help with the myths of ori­
gin of peoples and nations. Tom Scott and Peter and Renate Blickle led me
to understand something of the ideas behind the German Peasants' War of
1525. John Baldwin encouraged me and read several parts of this project.
I owe a great debt for the advice, expertise, and enthusiasm of Nancy
Young, my copy editor, and to Victoria Velsor, who drew up the index for this
book.
Research on the images of peasants was made possible by grants from the
Vanderbilt University Research Council and the American Philosophical So­
ciety in the academic year 1990-91 and from the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation in 1994-95. I am also grateful to the Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales for supporting a one-month visit to France in
1995 that allowed me to consult manuscripts in Paris and Troyes, and to the
Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a research fellowship in 1994.
Aspects of this project were presented at a number of conferences, and
the comments of many people who attended shaped my research and cor­
rected dubious interpretations and outright errors. I thank those who heard
papers given at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, in 1992; at the
medieval congresses at Kalamazoo, in 1993 and 1995, and at Leeds, in 1994; at
the French Historical Studies meeting of 1994; and at the Institute for His­
torical Research, London, in 1995. I also presented papers on the medieval
peasantry at Yale's Program in Agrarian Studies (1993), at the University of
California at Santa Barbara (1994), and at Harvard (1995). I am very grateful
to Jim Scott, Sharon Farmer, Thomas Bisson, Jan Ziolkowski, and their col­
leagues for these invitations.
Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to Vanderbilt University,
where I taught from 1978 until 1997. My work was always generously sup­
ported by the Vanderbilt administration, and I benefited immensely from the
learning and company of my colleagues.
P.F.
 Contents

List ofIllustrations xv
A Note on Translations xvii
Abbreviations xix

Introduction: Marginality and Centrality of Peasants 1

Part I. PEASANT LABOR AND A HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY

Chapter I. Peasant Labor and the Limits of Mutuality 15 .

Chapter 2. The Breakdown of Mutuality: Laments

over the Mistreatment of Peasants 40

Part 2. THE ORIGINS OF INEQUALITY

Chapter 3. Equality and Freedom at Creation 59

Chapter 4. The Curse of Noah 86

Chapter 5. National Myths and the Origins of Serfdom 105

Part 3. UNFAVORABLE IMAGES OF PEASANTS

Chapter 6. Representations of Contempt and Subjugation 133

Chapter 7. Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 157

 Contents xiv

P a r t 4. PEASANT AGENCY, PEASANT HUMANITY

Chapter 8. Peasant Warriors and Peasant Liberties 177

Chapter 9. Pious and Exemplary Peasants 204

Illustrations
Part5. THE REVOLT AGAINST SERVITUDE

Chapter IO. The Problem of Servitude: Arbitrary

Mistreatment, Symbolic Degradation 239

Chapter II. Peasant Rebellions of the Late Middle Ages 257

Conclusion: Harmony and Dissonance 289

1. A representation of the Three Orders of Society. 21
2. Adam being taught by an angel to work. Thirteenth-century
Notes 307 painting on the ceiling of the Monastery of Sigena, Aragon. 29
Bibliography 403 3. Work after the Fall: Adam digging, Eve spinning. Another
thirteenth-century painting from the Monastery of Sigena. 65
Index 451
4, Mistreatment of serfs. Woodcut engraving by the so-called
Petrarch Master. 68
5. A tree representing the social estates. Woodcut engraving by
the Petrarch Master. 70
6. Captured fugitive serfs with horns. Early-fourteenth-century
illustration to Codex 6.1, "De fugitivis servis." 90
7. Cain shown with horns and kinky hair. From an English Psalter,
ca. 1270-80. 92
8. The labors of the months, August, wheat harvest. From the
Queen Mary Psalter, early fourteenth century. 145
9. A scene from Neidhart's scatological misadventure, the "Violet
Prank" (Veilchenschwank). Mural painted between 1360 and 1380, from
the "Zurn Grundstein" house, Winterthur, Switzerland. 152
rn. Peasant tournament, drawing by Hans Burgkmaier, early
sixteenth century. 180
n. Christ with a spade. English alabaster sculpture, fifteenth
century, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 225
12. The world turned upside down: a peasant at the altar and
a priest plowing. Woodcut engraving from Joseph Gruenbeck,
Spiegel der naturlichen, himelischen und prophetischen sehungen
(Leipzig, 1522). 233
 Illustrations xvi

13. The execution of Gyorgy D6zsa. Woodcut illustration from

Stephanus Taurinus, Stauromachia (Vienna, 1519)... 270
14- The execution of Gyorgy D6zsa. Woodcut illustration from the
pamphlet Die auffeur so geschehen ist im Ungelandt mit den Creutzern
(Nuremberg, 1514). 271
A Note on Translations

English translations of passages cited from original-language editions are my

own. Other translations are from the cited published English editions. Full
information on original and English editions is provided in the bibliography.
 Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in the notes and bibliography.

BLVS Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart
cc Corpus Christianorum
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecdesiasticorum Latinorum
GAG Coppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik
LCL Loeb Classical Library
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
PG Patrologia cursus completus. Series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne,
161 vols. (Paris, 1857-66).
PL Patrologia cursus completus. Series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne,
221 vols. (Paris, 1844-55).
Images of the Medieval Peasant
 Introduction
Marginality and Centrality ofPeasants

Medieval Europeans of the upper classes, like their modern descendants, re­
garded rural life as appealingly simple and admirably productive, but above
all as strange, a tableau populated with alien beings of a lower order. Jean de
La Bruyere described a countryside whose inhabitants appeared at first glance
to be ferocious animals, dark, burnt by the sun, attached to the soil that they
worked with stubborn persistence. Yet they could speak, and indeed, when
they raised themselves up, they had a human countenance. In fact, they were
human. 1 A more poignant oscillation between the human and not-human is
voiced by the peasants themselves in Carlo Levi's memoir of exile in an im­
poverished part of southern Italy:
"We're not Christians," they say. "Christ stopped short of here, at Eboli."
"Christian," in their way of speaking means "human being," and this almost
proverbial phrase that I have so often heard them repeat may be no more than
the expression of a hopeless feeling of inferiority. "We're not Christians, we're
not human beings; we're not thought of as men but simply as beasts, beasts of
burden, or even less than beasts, mere creatures of the wild."2
To be Christian meant to be fully human, in the European Middle Ages
as well as in twentieth-century Lucania. Thus being treated as less than hu­
man clashed with the dignity and equality, however minimal, conferred by
being a Christian. The bitter proverb of the peasants cuts two ways: it both
recognizes how they,were regarded by their superiors and protests their hu­
manity against this dominant image.

This book considers the different images of the peasant in the Middle Ages.
These images formed an extensive vocabulary of contempt, but at the same
 Introduction 2 Introduction 3
time they portrayed the peasant as closer to God than those who oppressed
him. On the one hand, the peasant was lowly, even subhuman: ugly, dull­
witted, coarse, materialistic, and cowardly. Such depictions did not simply
present the supposed physical characteristics of rustics but explained their
subordination, their separation from the rest of humanity. While nothing so
elaborate as modern pseudobiological theories of inferiority existed, represen­
tations of the peasant as naturally lowly excused his relative lack of freedom
and justified his exploitation.
The language of subordination was applied as well to many groups alien
to Christian Europe in the Middle Ages. Some of the opprobrious language
used for peasants spilled over into hostile characterizations of Jews, Muslims,
heretics, lepers, and strange foreign peoples, including the fantastic "mon­
strous" or "Plinian'' races thought to inhabit the East. All these could be re­
garded as unclean, dishonest, savage, or cursed, and their religious, physical,
or geographic differences viewed as fearsome.
Peasants differed from these marginal or outcast peoples in three impor­
tant respects, which made their representation as alien more problematic:
they constituted the overwhelming majority of the European population; as
their superiors acknowledged, they were necessary to feed the rest of society;
and they were Christians. An array of unfavorable images indeed character­
ized peasants as debased, even subhuman, but these stereotypes were tem­
pered by the fact that peasants were not "marginal" in the same way as out­
cast peoples, foreigners, or the destitute poor.3
As the largest segment of the Christian population, the peasantry was a
pervasive and familiar presence in the medieval European landscape and thus
could hardly be viewed as alien in the same way as the teeming infidels of the
immense non-European world "out there," beyond the borders. Furthermore,
to the extent that the peasants supported those placed above them, they ap­
peared dutiful and necessary. They fulfilled, perhaps reluctantly, the duties
laid upon them by the dominant model of society that saw it divided into
functional orders: those who fight, those who pray, and those who work. Fi­
nally, the nature of Christianity itself gave pause to the dominant elements of
society: might the degradation of the peasantry bode a future reversal? would
God reward their meekness and implicit closeness to Him in the world to
come?
Although the largest number of images in literature and art depicted
peasants as unpleasant and boorish, a series of favorable images also gained
currency, especially in didactic and sermon literature, ranging from praises of
their labors, to laments of their unjust exploitation, to sentimental exemplifi­
cations of their fortitude, simplicity, and piety. The vocabularies of both hos-
tile and laudatory representations, their interaction;?recondliation, and oppo­
sition, form the subject of the following chapters. Rather than simply collect­
ing and contrasting "favorable" and "unfavorable" images, I will show how
they could be combined or held simultaneously in a certain tension to deal
with a vast segment of society regarded as "other" but also as immediately
necessary.
The seemingly inconsistent images of peasants have been often remarked,
particularly by students of the various national literatures. Historical treat­
ments of literature in relation to society have drawn up catalogues, analyses,
and typologies of the presentation of peasants. Thus Wilhelm Blankenburg
in 1902 described how peasants appeared in the French fabliaux, and Oskar
Reich in 1909 used literary sources to discuss the life and culture of the peas­
antry in France.4 A dissertation written by Stanley Leman Galpin in 1905
listed the base characteristics of peasants in contrast to the favorable ones of
the knights. 5 In 1934 another dissertation, this one concerning German me­
dieval literature, discussed both harsh antipeasant satires and writings in
praise of peasants.6 G. G. Coulton, dedicated to exploding the romantic im­
age of medieval harmony, offered in 1925 a thoroughly researched catalogue
of attacks on peasants and peasant resentment.7 Hilde Hiigli (1929) and, more
exhaustively, Fritz Martini (1944) described the variations in the peasant's ap­
pearance in the several genres of medieval German literature.8 Martini's book
is especially important because of both its detail and the author's desire to
present as much of the favorable imagery as could be discovered. More re­
cently David Heald, Helga Schuppert, and Herwig Ebner have demonstrated
the shifts and ambivalence of portrayals of peasants in literary and historical
works-!/
It is not my intention to show that peasants were more favorably depicted
than has been conventionally assumed. 10 As will become apparent, I have
profited greatly from the works mentioned above, but I am more interested
in the connections among images than in whether one sort outweighed the
, other. I contend that language concerning the peasant was not simply a col­
lection of positive and negative representations. The vocabulary describing
peasants formed itself into a variegated discourse, a grammar, by which peas­
ants could be regarded both as degraded and as exemplary, as justly subordi­
nated yet as close to God. Such ideas were not synthesized into a consistently
articulated doctrine, but literate observers at least occasionally worried about
why peasants were subordinated, and especially why many of them were un­
free (serfs) and at the mercy of their lords, a condition that could be recon­
ciled with Christian doctrine and social assumptions, but not complacently
or automatically.
 Introduction 4 Introduction
In addition, I examine common themes of peasant labor, productivity,
and exploitation that fit into both positive and negative imagery. However
debased the peasants were in the eyes of the dominant orders of society, their
labor was recognized as providing sustenance for all. Labor might be regarded
as expiation rather than a positive activity in itself, but even if peasants were
uniquely afflicted by the Fall or by some biblical event such as Noah's curse
upon his son Ham, their labor was necessary.
Such labor, it could be argued, repaid some service, such as protection
and prayer in accord with the functional division of society into the Three
Orders. If, however, agricultural labor was coerced (either by servitude or by
a general pattern of seigneurial domination) and was not in fact matched
by any real benefit, then society's conformity to divine will was called into
question. The doubt nagged especially in that the peasants were not paradig­
matically alien or infidel. Enslaving Saracens captured in battle created
few moral problems according to the prevailing view. But degrading Chris­
tian rustics exercised quite another prerogative, one requiring more elaborate
justifications.
These justifications lie behind the proliferation of images of the peas­
antry, both negative and positive, and are expressed in the images themselves.
In such representations we find the rustic's position explained in terms of an
innate character that fits him for toil and ill-treatment, or in terms of some
negation of original equality transmitted hereditarily (such as Noah's curse),
or in terms of an admitted secular injustice that is part of a larger scheme, to
be overcome in a heavenly reversal of fortune.
A collection of images organized according to a pattern conforms to the
definition of ideology as "the imaginary relationship of individuals to their
real conditions of existence."11 The images cannot be divorced from their so­
cial context. Moreover, they form a program more active and self-interested
than a mere pattern of thought (mentality or collective imagination) that is
unpremeditated and unexamined. Paul Zumthor regards ideology as "an en­
semble of intellectual and discursive schemes" whose function is to legitimate
the ruling order as natural and unquestionable.12 Ideology is both a "fossiliza­
tion' ' in its historical terms and active as a coercive device. Yet, as I will argue
in concluding this investigation, images of peasants did not form an uncon­
tested or "hegemonic" discourse that serenely justified how peasants were
treated. Historians reading literary sources are often tempted to reduce them
to ideological statements at the expense of their specificity as essentially imag­
inative works. I hope to show that, doctrinaire though such texts may be,
they possess an individuality, seriousness, and inner tension that resists ideo­
logical simplification.
5
The forms that discourse about the peasants took unequivocally reflect
the material conditions of medieval society. To understand the dynamic of
that society, however, requires knowledge of what Michel Vovelle calls the
"complex mediators" between real life and representation.13 Such mediators
in this context include notions of labor, human dignity, and mutuality, to be
discussed in the following chapters. I will not treat the images and their pe­
culiar evolution and interaction either as free-floating inventions apart from
society, or as narrow rationalizations of the way of the world. The history of
mentalities explores the relationship between objective conditions of human
life and the way people narrate and live it. Shaped as they are by these paired
forces, mental constructs do not necessarily point in only one direction (such
as bolstering the hegemonic view of the powerful), nor can they be related
mechanically to the structures of social organization. They have a certain
amount of play or autonomy, and in addition, as thought patterns with a cer­
tain power, they influence the material basis of society. For example, as I have
pointed out elsewhere, jurists and historians in a particular region of medieval
Europe, in their efforts to categorize and explain servitude, effectively pro­
moted defining formerly free peasants as serfs, yet undermined serfdom by
their doubts: articulating these doubts, peasants of the region mounted a suc­
cessful rebellion against servile status.14
Images of medieval peasants were varied, even contradictory, but not ir­
reconcilable. They could be fit into an intelligible pattern, even forming an
ideology of exploitation, but it was a pattern with enough internal points of
contestation to require constant reinforcement in rebuffing challenges both
from within elite circles and from outside, from the peasants themselves.
Even though contemptuous images of rustics seem a constant in Europe
across the centuries, regarding the peasant as an object of contempt was not
inevitable. In the Byzantine Empire, for example, it was artisans, not peas- ·
ants, who figured as the opponents of saints, as boorish scoffers. Peasants
were viewed as virtuous when they were not simply unnoticed.15
. To the extent that images in the medieval West were oriented around cer­
tain ideas-that peasants are like animals, that rustics are equal in the sight
of God, that they are the· progeny of Ham-they were inscribed in social re­
ality but have to be described according to a certain internal logic and coher­
ence not limited to specifics of time or place. My attempt to articulate this
logic and coherence is what, I hope, justifies the organizing principles of what
follows. Rather than moving chronologically from the Carolingian era to the
German Peasants' War of 1525, I examine the conceptions of peasants in soci­
ety synchronically, thematically.
The two chapters in the first part of the book concern what might be
 Introduction 6
considered the idealized model of the peasants' social position and the admit­
ted flaws in that vision. The need for peasants who nourish society was joined
to a justification of their subordination by an appeal not only to hierarchy but
also to mutuality, particularly through the image of the three functional or­
ders of society: those who fight, those who pray, and those who work (Chap­
ter 1). Yet from its beginnings, the Three Orders model was recognized not to
benefit the rustics in fact. This flawed mutuality provoked a series of com­
plaints and challenged the justification of a system that in reality depended
on unrecompensed, exploited labor (Chapter 2).
The subsequent group of three chapters examines the attempts to address
the unequal relations among the Three Orders. Chapter 3 describes how the
original equality of humanity at the time of Creation was seen as opposing
the manifest inequality of condition in the world. Writers disagreed about
how far original equality and freedom still held as moral imperatives for con­
temporary society and about the legitimacy of subverting them, especially
among Christians. While authorities agreed on humanity's common descent
from our first parents, they also posited some event, not merely fortune, that
differentiated not only rich from poor but free from unfree. One popular
candidate for such an event, as noted above, was the curse of Noah upon his
son Ham (Genesis 9:25), whose descendants, through his own son Canaan,
would have to serve their brethren. Although this biblical passage would
later be put to various uses, notably in defending the enslavement of Africans
in the New World, its medieval exegesis focused on European serfs, in an ef­
fort to explain their bondage and subordination to arbitrary lordship (Chap­
ter 4). Secular historical legends served a similar purpose. Myths of national
origin, especially in Catalonia and Hungary, identified a moment when the
ancestors of peasants preferred a timid safety to the choice of bellicose fr�e­
dom. The moment of foundation differentiated nobles-the free and the
brave-from those licitly held in subjugation for their ancestors' cowardice
(Chapter 5).
The two chapters in the third part of this book consider the well-known
panoply of negative images of the peasant. While in many genres the ostensi­
ble force of such images was merely comedic, the base, coarse, bestial rustic
they presented sometimes served as a naturalistic argument tending to con­
done, if not actually justify, the bad treatment of peasants. Rather than at­
tempting to account for some past cause of inequality, farcical imagery sug­
gested that the rustic was simply inferior by nature and so fitted to toil and
exploitation (Chapter 6). The seventh chapter looks particularly at the differ­
ence between caricatures of male and those of female peasants. Peasant men
represented a peculiarly gross, dull materialism, but one that involved only a
Introduction 7
torpid sexual instinct. Peasant women, until the end of the Middle Ages,
were less grotesque than the men in literary renditions, but more libidinous.
The fourth part of the book discusses the forms of retaliation against or
reb uttal to negative imagery of peasants. Chapter 8 studies the ability of at
least some peasants·to constitute themselves as autonomous and to defend
themselves by military force. Chapter 9 examines countervailing representa­
tions of rustics as sanctified by their suffering and their labor. Here the failure
of mutuality in the Three Orders system is regarded as secular and temporary,
something that could and should be overcome (Chapter 9).
The chapters in the fifth part consider how the disparate views of the
peasantry outlined above affected the social problems that lay at the heart of
the peasant rebellions that erupted between the Black Death of 1348-49 and
the German Peasants' War of 1525. Theoretical efforts to reconcile servitude
with the necessary social role of the peasantry and their status as Christians
are dealt with in Chapter 10. That these were not merely abstract discussions
but were appropriated by peasants in their grievances and programs is con­
sidered in Chapter n.
A thematic (as opposed to chronological) treatment of the highly complex is­
sue of medieval conceptions of peasants runs the risk of disengaging observa­
tions from their contexts, both their immediate historical situation and their
role in certain genres. My approach has the advantage, however, of highlight­
ing the frequency and longevity of certain themes and images. Moreover, the
social meaning of such texts must be understood not only in relation to their
historical moment but also in relation to a symbolic tradition that influenced
thought about peasants. Images, symbols, and representations do not have a
completely arbitrary or independent life, but they must be studied over a long
period of chronological development even when they might seem to have
become merely repetitious and empty. A central thesis of the last chapter
(Chapter n) is that late-medieval dissent and rebellion, even well into the six­
teenth century, was shaped by earlier discourse about the peasant. Not only
were such ideas as the value of labor, the failure to compensate it, and the
original equality of all humanity appropriated by peasants as late as 1381 and
1525, but such ideas also created doubts and dissension within the elite circles
that discussed the peasant as an object or problem in these centuries.
Looking at images across a variety of genres threatens to violate distinc­
tions among rules and forms that differed from one national literature to an­
other, from written to pictorial depiction, and from poetry and romance to
didactic works such as histories or sermons. What is significant, as I hope to
 Introduction 8
show, is that within the conventions of various genres certain representations
were shared: the military incapacity of rustics, for example, figured not only
in the romance but in historical and legal accounts of nations; the depen­
dence of society on rustic labor appears in descriptions of the Three Orders,
in thirteenth-century sermons, and in the plaints of peasants at the end of the
Middle Ages.
Much of the imagery concerning peasants occurs in literature. In Ger­
many, where a whole genre of satire against the peasant (Bauernschwank) de­
veloped, peasants often figured as ludicrous protagonists. Elsewhere, as in
French romances, they played comic or grotesque minor roles. I have tried
not to approach literature as if it were a realistic mirror of society. Literary
conventions, exaggerations, and stylizations mak;e such an approach a very
dubious enterprise. Yet literature, an imperfect mirror, nevertheless reveals, as
Jacques Le Goff noted, something about the makers of the mirror.16 Literary
obsessions, distortions, and stereotypes entertained their audiences but also
represented and categorized peasants according to certain norms. Even in the
most hostile genres, however, these categories were unstable and could, by
their very exaggeration, undermine and call into question the subordination
of the peasantry. 17
Although seldom a protagonist, the peasant is ubiquitous in medieval
texts, but of course not in the sociologically descriptive fashion that might be
most helpful to us. It is also obvious that such documents as peasant mem­
oirs and diaries are in short supply.18 Nevertheless, as Jean-Claude Schmitt re­
marked, "it is not so much the documents that are lacking as the conceptual
instruments necessary to understand them." 19 I do not claim any particular
methodological advance, but I have attempted to look at a large and varied
array of texts regarding peasants to discern repeated themes in the discourse
about them. In doing so I am most concerned with persistence over time but
will discuss to some extent what seems to have changed over the first five cen­
turies after the millennium.
Certain kinds of texts proved less fruitful than I had hoped. Cistercian
and Franciscan literature might be expected to offer many reflections on rustic
labor, but this turned out not to be so. The Cistercians had uneducated lay
brethren (conversi) who worked in agriculture rather than prayer, but despite
the status of these toilers as members of the community, and despite the obe­
dience and piety that their agricultural role presumably required, their labor
was only occasionally regarded as sanctifying. Furthermore, their spiritual role
as brethren was downgraded even further by the end of the twelfth century.
For their part, the Franciscans were concerned more with poverty than with
work-and as will be seen, the medieval peasant, even if starving, only par-
Introduction 9
tially qualified as "poor" from the Franciscan point of view. Franciscan atten­
tion was devoted to the marginal and the destitute, especially in the cities,
rather than to the poor holding land. In the accounts of Francis himself, the
boorish interlocutors whom the saint treats with astonishing meekness and
whose abuse he embraces often conform to stereotypes of rustics. Serfdom was
often evoked by Francis and his followers as a model of humility and devo­
tion, but this did not in itself imply any particular attention to worldly serfs.20
The subject of this book and the object of so' much medieval discussion, the
peasant needs to be defined before looking at the various modes of description.
The definition of peasants in modern agrarian studies focuses on several
points: peasants are family farmers who produce a large part of what they
consume but are tied to a wider economy (producing or laboring for a mar­
ket). They have access to the use of land and usually to a specific, hereditarily
transmissible unit of property, but they are not its owners. They pay rent in
the form of produce, money, labor, or a combination of these, and their de­
pendence on the landlo�d (private or state) is more than merely economic
or contractual.21 Peasants are thus neither independent, self-sufficient small
farmers nor sharecroppers in the fashion of the American South in the nine­
teenth and early twentieth centuries (sharecroppers did not grow their own
food and moved frequently). Nor are peasants like slaves, who were also likely
to be moved around, did not have particular pieces of property that they
could transmit to their heirs,-and could not legally form permanent family
units.22 But peasants do have a tie to the land and its masters that binds them
by means of a certain loss of freedom, or debt, or taxation.
Use of the word "peasant" to describe medieval agriculturalists has been
called "a confession of weakness" that fails to grapple with a more complex
reality.23 The modern definition of a peasant does, in my opinion, possess
sufficient precision in itself and is applied accurately to the system of land
tenure that existed in the Middle Ages. The medieval peasant was a tenant
farmer who, at least in theory, could sustain himself and his family while pay­
ing a substantial rent (labor service, produce, and/or money) that supported
his lord. The extra-economic power exerted on him was usually that of a pri- _
vate landlord (most obviously the members of the military elite, that is, the
knights) or the Church. In this overwhelmingly agrarian society, the vast ma­
jority of the population were.. peasants, and the ultimate source of its wealth
and economic expansion was peasant labor.
Some peasants were free, while others were serfs, defined by custom or
law as constrained either by being deprived of redress through public law, by
 Introduction IO
rights over their persons and property exerted at the discretion of their lords,
or by an inability to remove themselves fi-b.th the land. Although serfdom was
widespread and varied in the Middle Ages, at no time was a majority of the
rural population legally defined as unfree. Nevertheless, a su�stantial propor­
tion of that population consisted of serfs; moreover, medieval law, terminol­
ogy, and the very image of the peasant encouraged a tendency to regard all
rustics as at least potentially or essentially servile. Indeed, with few excep­
tions, peasants of all conditions were constrained by a system of economic ex­
ploitation and social subordination.24
In the medieval period a number of terms were used to denote peasants.
The most common Latin word until the eleventh century was co/onus, origi­
nally a late-Roman term for a person of semifree condition (that is, not a
slave) who was attached to a particular property.25 It lost its particular legal
meaning upon the collapse of the Western imperial authority and seems to
have been applied thereafter to rural cultivators but with a connotation of
servitude, dose to the Roman term for slave, servus. Rusticus and agricola were
also popular and carried pejorative connotations of stupidity and barbarism
(especially rusticus).
In the high and late Middle Ages, the most common term in Latin was
rusticus, which meant any country-dwelling laborer, landless or landed, free
or serf. Servus and other Roman terms (adscripticius or co/onus in a more re­
strictive meaning) were applied to serfs but in theoretical works rather than
in everyday documents. The use of servus thus gave to serfdom an even more
degraded set of implications, in that jurists tended to apply the Roman law
of slavery to medieval serfdom.26
ffn the vernacular, terms such as Bauer, vilain, and "villein" carried differ­
ent shadings of meaning. In Germany, Bauer denoted a person of fairly ex­
tensive property but carried, as did rusticus, at least a certain implication of
unfree, servile status.27 The image of the Bauer was set off against that of the
knight, so that the former was associated most of all with agricultural pro­
ductivity and military incapability.28
In France and England, such words as vilain and "villein" had more im­
plications concerning legal standing than did the German word Bauer, but
their meanings changed. The English villeins were distinct from the slaves
(theows and a host of other terms) in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods,
but became assimilated to a less differentiated class of servile though not en­
slaved rural tenants in the high and late Middle Ages.29 A similar change took
place in the definition of vilain in northern France, although in common par­
lance, the word continued to mean rustic (with connotations of base behav­
ior) rather than specifically ser£
Introduction II
Medieval discourse about the peasant is entangled with changes in the
concept of "the poor." This fluctuating entanglement was of more than socio­
logical interest, reflecting as it does medieval concern about biblical solicitude
for the poor, as expressed by Old Testament prophets and in particular by the.1
New Testament. The word "poor" continues today to have a certain ambigu­
ity in the United States, for example, where a distinction is often made be­
tween "the working poor" and "the underclass," the former being seen as wor­
thy but unfortunate by reason of low wages; the latter as marginal, criminal,
unstable in their manner of life. In general during the Middle Ages, the peas­
ant, however impoverished, held a parcel of land and could in some measure
sustain himsel£ He was not considered among the poor because he was not
utterly destitute or without means of support. By the thirteenth century, es­
pecially with the rapid growth of cities, the poor, unlike the peasants, seemed
to pose an urgent problem of social control, much as would be the case in the
modern era.30 At the same time, by their visibility, rootlessness, and lack of
property, the urban poor were more obvious objects of charity than the peas­
ants, who ·were regarded as avaricious even if their "property" was miserable
and their labor exploited.
At various times and in several contexts, however, peasants and pauperes
were regarded as similar or identical. This was especially true in the early
Middle Ages, when pauper meant something dose to the modern word
"poor," covering both the destitute and the lower-level agricultural worker.31
In the late Merovingian and Carolingian era, a pauper was conceived as any­
one who, although free, lacked power and substantial property. The pauperes
(who included independent free men) were contrasted with the powerful (po­
tentes), who owned extensive lands and servile laborers. Pauperes were those
who needed to be protected by the kings, although their freedom and auton­
omy would come under pressure from the powerful as state authority waned
in the ninth and tenth centuries.32
With the growth of the European economy after 1000 and with the im­
press of new religious movements, "the poor" became much more sharply dis­
tinguished from the peasantry. The poor were differentiated from those with
property, not from the tiny elite of the potentes. The reasons for this were
twofold. On the one hand, the example of the apostolic life stirred the pow­
erful to convert themselves into pauperes Christi.33 The spectacle of wealth ef­
faced power as the emblem of worldliness, and especially with Saint Francis,
a literal poverty was exalted as a graphic form of humility. Francis understood
poverty in terms of begging, the most obvious act connoting destitution and
lack of property. 34 On the other hand, beginning with the thirteenth century
and accelerating after 1348, the, poor were regarded as a problem, and at-
 Introduction 12

tempts were made to police them and to distinguish between worthy and un­
worthy poor. 35
Thus in the later Middle Ages, the peasants and the poor alike figured as
Part' J
both exemplary and base, even dangerous. Yet at the same time, the peasants
were distinguished quite clearly from the poor in that, as emphasized above,
the peasants were seen not as economically marginal but rather as productive.
Peasant Labor and a
In reality, however, the peasants were fundamentally divided between those
who actually were self-sustaining and those who did not possess a tenancy
Hierarchical Society
sufficient for their support. The latter had to labor for others to supplement a
meager living and lived closer to the margins of society. 36
As well as being internally differentiated between those holding full
tenures and those in a more precarious position, the peasantry was also di­
vided between those who were legally of free condition and those who were
serfs. At different times and places these divisions appeared of greater or lesser
importance and affected the image of peasants accordingly. In German litera­
ture, for example, the peasants appear extremely coarse in their manners but
not impoverished. In fact, their boorishness is exemplified by, among other
things, an inappropriate and foolish display of weapons, fine clothes, glut­
tony, and other marks of an ill-managed prosperity. In the French fabliaux the
peasant (vilain) is often too well-off for his own good, while in the romances,
poetry, and didactic literature of France he is a more wretched character.
Whether servile or free, prosperous or indigent, the medieval peasants
were above all defined as unprivileged and lowly, yet as productive. Elite re­
gard of the peasantry displayed a fundamental ambivalence, conceiving of
rustics on the one hand as inhabiting a completely different and lower
world-if not literally "other," at least constructed as alien-and on the other
hand as ur-human, exemplarily Christian, conforming most closely to what
God had intended for humanity, people whose worthy labor supports all of
humanity. This ambivalence shapes the following chapters.
 Chapter' J
Peasant Labor and the
Limits of Mutuality

Medieval observers could not consistently maintain that peasants were mar­
ginal. Peasants were not a minority of the population, as Jews and lepers were,
nor could they easily be presented as "Other," like the Saracens or the Plinian
races. Peasants formed a majority, a Christian majority moreover. They were
thus central, not peripheral; they cultivated the land to which they were born
and sustained the whole society from generation to generation.
Above all, in the eyes of their superiors, peasants were necessary. Without
them, asks a late-fifteenth-century German poem entitled "The First Noble­
man,"
Who would produce for us the wheat,
And also the good wine
By which we are often gladdened? 1

More pointedly, Ordericus Vitalis in the twelfth century questioned how the
clergy (oratores) could survive without the labor of plowmen (aratores). 2
Thomas of Wimbledon remarked in a sermon in 1388 that if there were no
laborers, priests and knights would have to work the land and herd animals,
or perish. 3
That the whole population depended ultimately on agricultural labor was
acknowledged by those of a practical turn of mind as well. In enacting a new
tax in 1298, the councilors of Siena claimed they would limit its impact on
the rural poor, who nourished the entire urban population. We may doubt
that the councilors' generosity flowed from sincere concern for the poor, but
if we are right, the fact that the councilors worried about the rural poor even
absent altruism shows all the more emphatically the force of the image of the
ultimate basis for wealth. 4
That the higher orders of society depended on the toil of the peasantry was
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 16
a commonplace that did not require a sophisticated appreciation of economics.
Yet it was a commonplace with a number of more complex implications. A so­
ciety's dependence on agriculture did not necessarily imply that those engaged
in it could, by virtue of their economic impo}"tance, lay claims upon those who
were not. In societies built on slave labor, for example, it was perfectly possible
to recognize the dependence without thereby conferring any dignity upon or
conceding any obligation to the slaves. The medieval peasant, however, was
usually regarded as at least partially free, and he was after all a Christian.
The hard lot of semi-free, Christian peasants and their role as subordinate
producers of wealth for others were explained and excused in two ways. For
one, the peasant's condition could be regarded as merited punishment for
some primordial sin (either biblical or pseudo-historical); we will examine
this idea in chapters 4 and 5. For another, if the peasant's essential nature fit
him for little more than brutish, docile labor, if he were naturally lowly, dull,
coarse, and stupid, then his labor and subordination could be viewed as sim­
ply appropriate, and no explanations based on sin or history would be
needed. This supposed debased character is an important implication of the
myriad derisive and hostile representations of peasants to be discussed below
in chapters 6 and 7.
To the extent that the peasant was, despite his "fallen" condition or his
"lowly" nature, nevertheless partially free and a Christian, he could not sim­
ply be dismissed as subhuman, and the question of the purpose of his labor
remained complicated by the degree to which it appeared unremunerated. It
is this question of recompense that troubled medieval authors to whom, on
first glance at least, peasants seemed to be exploited. In this chapter, I will
discuss two medieval responses to this concern. The prevailing model of soci­
ety-its division into the Three Orders of clerics, knights, and (agricultural)
laborers-addressed the problem of recompense by positing the relationships
among the orders as mutually beneficial rather than as exploitative. Peasants
worked for the other two orders and in exchange received the prayers of the
one and protection from the other. The second response was to ascribe a de­
gree of spiritual worth to peasant labor in itself, regardless of whether it was
adequately compensated in a material way. Such a valuation of labor as more
than just penitentially ben�ficial might counsel quietism (the reward would
be conferred in the next world), but could also carry subversive import: it
could imply that human beings should toil, and that those who do so might
be entitled to make present demands on the basis of its merit. Mutuality (the
Three Orders) and the intrinsic virtue of labor will be treated in this chapter
following a discussion of the basic observation underlying them: the indis­
pensability of the peasant's work.
The Limits ofMutuality 17
The Dependence ofthe Elite: Peasants as
the Support ofSociety
Explicit statements that agricultu·ral labor supports the rest of society first ap­
peared near the year 1000. In his Liber apologeticus (ca. 994), addressed to
Hugh Capet and his son and coruler Robert, Abbo of Fleury divided lay so­
ciety into agriculturalists (agricolae) and warriors (agonistae). The former sus­
tained the Christian populace by their sweat and rustic skills, while the latter
fought the enemies of the Church.5 In this, apparently the sole mention of
rustics in Abbo's works, there is no reciprocal obligation among the Three Or­
ders of society; rather, both groups of laymen uphold the Church.6 For Ael­
�r�c, abbot of Eynsham (died 1020), the different functions are explicitly
JOmed to a theory of the Three Orders in mutual relation (Aelfric was the first
to term the functional categories "orders").7
In his Colloquy, a Latin schoolbook, Aelfric answers the question "which
among the secular arts is the most important?" Without directly referring to
the scheme of the Three Orders, Aelfric cites the activity of the plowman
(arator) who feeds everyone else.8 Archbishop Wulfstan of York, to whom
Aelfric had addressed a letter on the Three Orders, paraphrased Aelfric, ob­
serving that the entire population is supported by those who labor (the woerc­
men). 9 In the Colloquy the plowman describes his difficult travail in cold
weather for an exigent master, lamenting, "the work is hard, because I am not
free."10 Elsewhere Aelfric reiterates the role of the laboratores, who nourish
everyone but who are aided by the bellatores, fighters of earthly foes, and the
oratores, battlers of spiritual enemies. Here the reciprocity that is clouded in
the Colloquy by the plowman's servitude is more confidently asserted.11
Bishop Gerard of Cambrai, in his Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium (writ­
ten probably in 1036), asserts that those who pray and those who fight ( ora­
tores and bellatores) are nourished by those who labor.12 This dependence was
also emphasized by Adalbero, bishop of Laon, whose Carmen ad Rotbertum
regem (ca. 1025), it is now thought, dates from shortly before Gerard's work
rather than after (as Claude Carozzi, the work's editor, and Georges Duby, in
his discussion of the orders, believed).13 Although Adalbero exalts the notion
of mutuality among the social orders, he expresses a frankly pessimistic view
of the dependence of the wealthy on agricultural labor and exploitation. The
way in which lords live and rule requires that those who labor receive only the
barest rewards.14
Two aspects of the commonplace that the peasant supports all as it ap­
pears in Adalbero's Carmen would persist in later centuries. On the one hand
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 18
it is a simple statement of fact, intended as a reminder to the powerful, or
simply as a recognition of the paradox that those who are great are ultimately
at the mercy of those they dominate. Adalbero points out that no free man
can live without servile dependents (servi) and that even the powerful depend
on their servants. 15 Behind this is Augustine's wry observation that those who
seem to command are in fact ruled by those who serve them. 16 On the other
hand, the statement that all are supported by agricultural labor could contain
a reproach that the peasant does not receive a reward for his labor, neither the
actual wealth produced nor any reciprocation from society. Adalbero calls the
servi an "afflicted race" who have nothing except sorrow and toil.17
In these two aspects of the commonplace we thus find what might be
called a "complacent" version of the dependence of the clergy and knights on
rustic labor and a more uneasy, even apologetic concern with society's evident
failure to realize the ideal of mutuality. The complacent tendency is exempli­
fied in Helmbrecht, a satirical didactic poem written before 1290 by Wernher
de Gartenaere. Its moral is the folly of the peasant who tries to rise above his
place. The young peasant Helmbrecht, disdaining the warnings of his father,
leaves the family farm to become a marauding knight. Although Helmbrecht
is quite a competent fighter, his reckless and savage career is eventually ended
by maiming and death.
In attempting to dissuade his son from becoming a knight, Helmbrecht\.
father extols the useful labor of the plowman, who supports all other orders
of society. Helmbrecht should take pride in agricultural work, not scorn it.
Many a king owes his crown to the plowman's toil, a sentiment that the au­
thor endorses but that the wicked Helmbrecht rejects.18 Similarly in the Buch
der Rugen, rustics are advised to be cheerful, for by their "pure" labor they
feed all Christendom. 19 In contrast to Adalbero, who acknowledges the coer­
cion of peasants, these thirteenth-century writers claim rustic labor is re­
warded. The _recompense is primarily spiritual, to be sure, and requires a cer­
tain docility. The author of the Buch der Rugen counsels diligence and accep­
tance on the part of the peasants, for the "purity'' of their productive labor
confers a degree of sanctity upon them.
Late medieval German literature bitterly satirized rustic stupidity and
faithlessness but simultaneously praised peasants as the uncomplaining bul­
wark of the social order. Hans Rosenpliit, a Nuremberg artisan best known
for his Carnival plays that featured ludicrously crude rustics, was also author
of a poem in praise of the "noble, pious peasant" who feeds the entire world
with his plow. In this poem, written in about 1450, Rosenpliit acknowledges
that he has no better friend than the "noble plowman'' who has fed both him
and his parents.20 A late-fifteenth-century German song in the form of a dia-
The Limits ofMutuality 19
logue has a peasant point out to a knight that without the plow the knight
could not survive.21 A poem by Heinrich "der Teichner" (ca. 1350) praises the
peasant whose plow teeds the world.22 The mutual benefit conferred by the
three-fold division of society is invoked by an entry in the fifteenth-century
,,
Colmar Song Collection likening the "pious peasant to the priest. His plow
relieves us of physical hunger as the priest ministers to our spiritual needs.23
Similar sentiments can be found in English texts. The late-medieval song­
poem whose modern title is "God Speed the Plow'' begins by acknowledging
that "the merthe of alle this londe maketh the gode husbonde [i.e., husband­
man) with erynge of his plowe."24 Several stanzas end "God speed the plow
all day' (or "all way'). Having described the various labors of the seasons, the
poem concludes by wishing long good life to those who pray for the plow­
man and who benefit from his work.
Such praises of peasants as the sustainers of all avoid dose examination of
reciprocity by emphasizing the virtue of agricultural labor. Virtue inheres not
in the work itself but in its benefit to others, although agricultural work is re­
garded as more "real" and productive than any other form of labor. The vi­
sion of the "noble" peasant is an aspect of the paradox of medieval concepts
of physical labor: while lowly and despised, such labor was acknowledged as
necessary and even meritorious.
Alongside these relatively serene assertions of the benefits of peasant ef­
forts we find laments over the breakdown of mutuality and the difficulty of
peasants' lives. The next chapter looks at reactions to this failure of the Three
Orders model, but here we should note where the theme of the peasant feed­
ing all others is joined to an acknowledgment that peasant labor is exploited
rather than compensated.
The German Franciscan preacher known as Brother Ludovicus, a fol­
lower of Berthold von Regensburg active in the late thirteenth century, sur­
veyed different callings and observed that the labor of rustics nourishes the
entire populace, but not by a benign process. Their lords simply take from
the peasants what they produce and devour it.25 More than a hundred years
earlier, Stephen of Fougeres (bishop of Rennes, n68-78) had complained
that those who produce the best-quality bread for their lords (and for "us" as
well) are forced to sustain themselves on a meager and wretched diet.26 Mon­
strelet's Chronicle for the year 1422 describes a rhymed petition supposedly
delivered by the desperate peasants of France to the king, which begins by re­
minding the privileged orders that they live off the toil of the laborers.27
Even those who regarded the peasant as unworthy, bestial, or cowardly
were willing, at least on occasion, to recognize their dependence on rustic la­
bor, although one finds in such acknowledgments no concession to mutual-
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 20 The Limits ofMutuality 21

ity nor any semblance of concern for the well-being of the peasantry. In the
course of a hysterical denunciation of the English Rising of 1381, John Gower
likened the rebels to all manner of verminous and destructive animals, but
feared that without their productive activity, famine wouid stalk the land. The
suppression of the revolt relieved his fears: "When the peasantry had been
bound in chains and lay patiently under our feet, the ox returned to its yoke
and the seed flourished beneath the plowed fields, and the villain ceased his
warning." 28 The Tyrolean poet Oswald von Wolkenstein (died 1445) frankly
conceded that he lived off the peasants' labor and that their taxes supported
him. Their role was to produce their own food and that of their masters. Os­
wald contemned them as deformed, black, and ugly, but they were, he admit­
ted, productive.29
Legendary accounts of the origins of Catalonia attributed the existence of
serfs to the failure of their ancestors to aid Charlemagne's conquest of Islam
in the Spanish March. According to one popular version of the tale, Charle­
magne triumphed against the Saracens even without the help of the timid
Christian populace, whom his nobles then advised him to kill as punishment
for their cowardice and virtual apostasy. Charlemagne, however, spared the
captive peasants, because after all, his knights could not cultivate the land.30
Once again the peasants were rendered as both contemptible and necessary.
A similar portrayal appeared in the aftermath of the Hungarian Peasant
Rebellion of 1514. While issuing a general pardon to all but the rebel leaders,
King Vladislav acknowledged that as a matter of justice all peasants who re­
volt should be executed as traitors. Nevertheless, to avoid exterminating the
entire peasant population, "without which the nobility would not fare very
well," he spared them-a grudging but for that very reason telling admission
of the basic facts of the premodern economy.31
1. A representation of the Three Orders of Society. From Image du Monde,
That the world depended on the peasant was an unimpeachable fact. But
the fact could carry moral implications concerning the value of agricultural British Library MS Sloane 2435, fol. 85r. Reprinted by permission of the British
Library, London.
labor, and opinions differed as to what the peasant deserved in return and
whether he was receiving anything.
function of the majority of the population-thus the function preeminently
of peasants-was to labor in return for the prayers of the clergy and the pro­
Mutuality: The Three Orders tection of the knights (Fig. 1). A text attributed to Peter the Chanter, for ex­
ample, divides society into clergy and laity but further distinguished the ora­
Since Georges Duby, Otto Gerhard Oexle, and most recently Giles Consta­
tores, who pray for all Christians; the bellatores, who fight the opponents of
ble have written important studies on the origins and permutations of the
the Church; and the agricolae, pauperes, and operarii, "by whose labor every­
Three Orders theory, it is hardly necessary to dwell on its content and elabo­
one eats and Lives. " 33
ratiori.32 This durable and much-reworked theory presented a hierarchical
The words "mutuality" and "reciprocity" in the context of the Three Or­
model of society incorporating a recognition of the importance of agricultural
ders model refer to the idea of a functional interdependence among social or-
labor into an overall notion of mutual service. According to this model, the
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 22
ders. Medieval scholars divided society �ccording to a number of different
schemes. Their systems were often organized around the various manners of
Christian life (virgins, continent persons, and married persons) or ecclesias­
tical roles (monks, secular clergy, laity). 34 The three-fold'division by social
function into those who fight, those who pray, and those who labor was,
therefore, merely one among many ways of imagining society, but it would
outlast its medieval clerical origins.
It has been claimed that the Three Orders model is predicated on certain
fundamental Inda-European mental structures, but this perhaps exaggerates
and mystifies continuity. 35 Although the idea of hierarchical and functional
division was found in antiquity, the specific roles and supposed reciprocity
envisioned in the Three Orders model were medieval creations. The ideal of
this interrelation among the orders would characterize medieval thought not
only in France but throughout Europe, and would endure into the twentieth
century.36
In connection with the Three Orders, more attention has been given to
the emergence of knighthood than to the position of peasants. Duby in his
pioneering work was concerned to show the ideology of knighthood and no­
bility whose legitimation was a key step in the social upheavals of the forma­
tive eleventh century. It was at this time that mere ternarity (three separate
ways of life) yielded to a more powerful idea of mutuality that transcended
earlier notions of common subordination to the ruler. Society was ddined by
diversified aristocratic and clerical orders rather than by a unifying royal or
imperial rulership. Even with the revived power of kings in the twelfth cen­
tury, royalty made an accommodation with aristocratic power, whose legiti­
mation and sacralization were perpetuated and elaborated.
The Three Orders in Duby's work are presented as an adaptable fantasy
of permanence and reciprocity that shored up and prettified a society whose
real bases were noble violence and· seigneurial exploitation. Recent work has
called into question Duby's belief that the theory emerged in the early elev­
enth century, precisely coinciding with the breakdown of the French monar­
chy and the rise of the knights. The theory of three interdependent orders ex­
isted as early as the School of Auxerre in the ninth century. 37 It was also more
important for Anglo-Saxon thinkers such as Aelfric and Wulfstan than Duby
and other French observers allowed. 38
The existence of earlier full-fledged concepts ofmutuality tends to di­
vorce the beginning of the Three Orders theory from a putative feudal crisis
of the eleventh century. This is important because it allows us to regard the
theory's origins as something more than an artificial, self-serving thought sys­
tem devised to justify the knightly class that emerged as dominant from that
The Limits ofMutuality 23
crisis. To the extent that the theory existed before the eleventh-century up­
heaval, it is less tied to an exclusively aristocratic view of society.
Duby considered the Three Orders an imagined ideological construct
elaborating a compelling but insincere rhetoric of mutuality that cloaked pre­
dation with piety. 39 He draws a dichotomy between a "real" social world and
an "imaginary" idealized and ideological one, typifying the Three Orders as a
thought system mobilized to serve those in whose interes·ts the theory was
cynically elaborated. As a legitimation of power, the Three Orders system
could not be used effectively to complain about the dereliction of knights or
the oppression of the lower orders. Anything that looks like such a complaint
was dismissed by Duby as insincere or irrelevant.
Aaron Gurevich and Otto Gerhard Oexle have disputed the supposed
contrast of "real" versus "ideological," warning against imposing modern con­
cepts on medieval thought patterns that did more than rationalize an arbi­
trary ordering of society exclusively for the benefit of those in power. Gure­
vich emphasizes that many of the elements of trifunctionality were found in
popular culture, that the Three Orders was not an elite fantasy imposed on
an inarticulate mass. 40 Oexle criticizes the assumption that ideas exist com­
plete outside society or that medieval mental representations constituted ide­
ologies in the sense of invented legitimation. 41 This is not to argue that the
Three Orders schema was a sociologically accurate portrait of medieval soci­
ety but that it represented a believable ideal outside the clerical world, that it
might be referred to and manipulated by warriors, even peasants. 42 It was
marshaled to deal with real problems, such as the role of the clergy in the
Peace of God movement, or the defense of Anglo-Saxon England against the
Scandinavians, or the need for justifications of the crusades.43
The Three Orders theory was thus more than a form of mystification. It
was a vehicle for justifying but also for criticizing exploitation, for one could
protest the failure of social reality to live up to the model. The accusation that
the "nobles exploit without protecting carries force only if there is an idea
of reciprocity (rather than mere domination) to appeal to. We should not
imagine late-medieval peasant rebellions as proceeding according to the pat­
terns laid out by clerical writers, but clerical complaints over the dereliction
of lords and the virtue of peasant labor would figure in justifications of peas­
ant protests.
The dereliction of lords-their failure to live up to the credo of mutual­
ity-appears in the writings of those who elaborated the Three Orders and
those who pointed to its shortcomings. Adalbero of Laon was the first since
John Chrysostom to discuss not only the productive labor of those who till
the fields but also their miserable and exploited condition. Who, he asks, can
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 24
count their innumerable labors that furnish riches to their masters?44 Others,
such as Benedict of Sainte-Maure, Stephen of Fougeres, and Stephen Lang­
ton, would also lament the oppression of those whose toil supports society.
But Duby regarded these as complacent acknowledgments of worldly injus­
tice that did not detract from confidence in the trifunctional model.45 De­
spite his belief in their fundamental insincerity, a view I do not share, Duby
assembled a useful dossier of laments over the failure to live up to the ideal of
mutuality.46
The Three Orders system was perceived nearly from its inception as
flawed in practice, but this did not, of course, render it weaker as a theory or
ideal. The disparity between ideal and practice, the failure of mutuality,
opened up the question of the nature and value of peasant labor. That peas­
ants supported society was, as we have seen, a truism. That they did not re­
ceive an adequate recompense was also widely recognized. The need to ex­
plain this provoked discussion of the value of work and the origins of human
inequality (particularly of servitude). If genuine reciprocity had obtained (or
were thought to exist), there would have been no need to explain exploitation.
The Value of Work
The emergence of the Three Orders model coincides with a more positive
evaluation of work. Although late antiquity regarded work as demeaning and
early Christian writers viewed it as penitential at best, thinkers of the Car­
olingian era began to emphasize the profit and necessity of labor.47 Implicit
within the idea of mutuality is the notion that labor has a merit at least com­
parable to that of spiritual and physical protection. Beyond the mere fact of
society's dependence on peasant labor, the trifunctional theory gives work a
particular (if not quite contractual) value. This is different from saying that
the lower orders toil because that is what they are fit for, or because they are
thereby justly punished for some transgression, or because they are simply
unfortunate, victims of the way of the world.
The development of the notion that work has a certain positive value did
not necessarily signal a revolution in attitudes of the sort identified by Max
Weber or, more recently and with regard to the Middle Ages itself, by Jacques
Le Gof£ We are not trying to examine the origins of capitalism, the mone­
tary economy, or the commodification of time. Acknowledging the utility of
labor is not the same thing as lauding it. Adalbero of Laon, in his Carmen ad
Rotbertum regem, expressed an early appreciation for the necessity of rustic la­
bor, but he cannot be said to have viewed labor as especially virtuous or cre­
ative, and, as has been seen, he evinced a pitying contempt for the struggles
The Limits ofMutuality 25
of the benighted laboratores to meet the demands of their oppressors. The ne­
cessity of labor was universally recognized in the High Middle Ages, but la­
bor never lost its lowly representation as "servile."
Such continuity of negative associations notwithstanding, the trifunc­
tional scheme did amount to a change in the value and visibility accorded to
work. Indeed the most important novelty of the Three Orders is the presence
and function of the laboratores. 48
The shift toward a more positive opinion of work coincided with in­
creased agricultural production beginning before the tenth century. The
growth of the medieval economy raised society above the level of subsistence,
eventually providing immense and unsettling wealth. Economic expansion
was disturbing because of its subversive effect on what had previously ap­
peared to be a stable hierarchy, but also because of its deleterious moral effect
on those who benefited most from it.
At the same time, once labor resulted in something more substantial than
mere survival, its accomplishments came to be estimated differently. It is well
known that Cistercian criticism of Cluny in the twelfth century contrasted
the parasitic splendor of the Benedictine foundations with the austere indus­
try of the White Monks. The Cistercians presented themselves as uniquely
faithful to Saint Benedict's insistence on manual labor rather than as the au­
thors of a new movement. In the Dialogue Between a Cluniac and a Cister­
cian, by the monk Idungus, the Cistercian claims that his order devotes itself
to rustic labor as ordained and established by God Himsel£ Work and con­
templation were thus joined as a path to ascent, not opposed.49 Having re­
jected receiving properties with ties to the donors and having accepted
poverty, the White Monks had to work. According to Isaac of Stella, the Cis­
tercians labored in accord with God's command to Adam (Genesis 3=19). Like
other men, they fittingly worked and sweated at their labors.50
Yet "labor" in Cistercian writings is not simply physical toil. After all, lib­
ertines and thieves strain themselves, for example by staying up all night, but
are hardly engaged in activity pleasing to God. Bernard exalted work result­
ing from voluntary poverty as opposed to labor resulting from necessity.
Bernard also included under the rubric of labor such monastic practices as
fasting, keeping vigils, and prayer.51 The same contrast between voluntary
and involuntary poverty is drawn by Aelred of Rievaulx, who regarded the
latter as "the curse of the peasants," imposing upon them the urgent physical
necessity to work.52
The Cistercians were sufficiently devoted to agricultural labor to establish
a form of monastic life for lay brethren who were illiterate and so might ac­
complish their vows through work in the fields with only occasional atten-
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Socie-ty 26
dance at religious ceremonies.53 The labor of these conversi, along with the of­
ten inept efforts of the choir monks, allowed the Cistercians to free them­
selves partially from dependence on tenancy and seigrn;urial exploitation.54
During the early years of the order, stories were recounted in praise of lay
brethren sanctified by their struggles with the land. According to Conrad of
Eberbach, for example (writing ca. n90), a conversus dreamed that Christ
walked beside him as he plowed, goading the ox for him.55
More often, however, the conversi were praised for their humility and obe­
dience, qualities that figure in most of the eighteen stories included in Con­
rad's Exordium magnum and in other Cistercian miracle collections.56 Arnulf
of Villers, a lay brother recognized as a saint, is described in his vita com­
posed by Goswin of Villers as exemplary by virtue of self-mortification more
than by work. True, he is praised for his obedient labor for the monastery in
Villers, but Goswin notes with approval that Arnulf obtained permission to
abstain from manual tasks in order to devote his time to prayer and contem­
plation.57 Those lay brethren granted access to direct spiritual experience
could dispense with the relatively paltry blessings of work.
The conversi themselves may have held a more positive concept of sancti­
fication conferred by work, but this is impossible to reconstruct. There is an
interesting miracle story about a conversus of Clairvaux (described as a "rus­
tic") whom Saint Bernard visited on his deathbed. The conversus displayed an
inappropriate confidence that he would shortly be in paradise. Bernard re­
buked him, reminding him that he had entered the community with little in
the world to give up and thus motivated more by necessity than by the fear of
God. The dying conversus accepted the rebuke but explained that heaven is
gained by obedience rather than by wealth or a noble body, and that his own
obedience might serve as an example to others. At this Bernard praised him
as blessed, for the truth he spoke was inspired by God Himsel£ 58 A degree of
assertiveness is also demonstrated by a revolt of conversi at Schonau in n68,
occasioned by an unequal distribution of shoes.59 There is thus evidence for
independent thought, but nothing directly concerning estimates of the value
of labor.
Ultimately the Cistercians cannot be credited with exemplifying a dra­
matic change of attitude toward work. Labor remained firmly anchored to
penitential rather than positive good in their writings and was not joined to
the functional idea that agricultural work feeds the other orders. To the extent
that labor provided spiritual benefit, the latter derived from the voluntary
self-deprivation involved, according to Cistercian opinion, not from any
value inhering in the work itself. In any event the Cistercians rather early on
lost their fondness for manual labor. The order therefore does not seem to
The Limits ofMutuali-ty 27
have in uenced substantially the estimation of value or dignity placed on the
daily t sks performed by the peasant masses.
T e Franciscarts, and Dominicans, with their emphasis on begging and
(for the Franciscans) exaltation of poverty, raised questions about wealth and
property but also implicitly about work. The secular master Guillaume de
Saint Amour, for example, initiated a controversy at the University of Paris
when he questioned the utility of the mendicant orders who lived off the rest
of society. Their defense was that preaching constituted an arduous form of
work, a response that did not dispute the positive image of labor. Even when
economic motives were denounced (as in ecclesiastical censure of usury), the
condemnation took place against a background distinguishing profitable use­
ful ventures from sterile or passive enterprise.60 By this time, the late thir­
teenth and fourteenth centuries, the activities of the urban classes were suffi­
ciently visible to undermine earlier assumptions that labor meant exclusively
or essentially the tasks of rustics.
Clearly the idea that until the Reformation work was treated with dis­
dain-which owes most of its force to Max Weber's Protestant Ethic-is no
longer tenable. Few aspects of the understanding of medieval society have
been as thoroughly changed by twentieth-century historiography. Yet the me­
dieval image of productive work did not grow uniformly and smoothly out
of urban prosperity. Le Goff notes the complexity of the medieval attitudes
that moved away from unmitigated deprecation but continued to hold man­
ual labor in low regard.61 It is worth examining this ambivalence a bit more,
because it affected the variety of opinions about the utility and moral posi­
tion of the peasantry expressed by the other elements of society and by the
peasants themselves.
We should first distinguish among different meanings of "labor." During
the High Middle Ages labor certainly became a more visible topic. Although
agriculty.ral work is seldom mentioned in sources from the fifth to eighth
centuries, 62 beginning in the tenth century agricultural production as the
source of worldly wealth was recognized and discussed. This is not to say that
estate management or economic rationalism of a modern sort resulted, but to
say that even in a discourse concerning exploitation, such as Adalbero's Car­
men, work was credited with a fruitful energy beyond that of a pitiful subsis­
tence. Adalbero's use of the word servi notwithstanding, an exploitable peas­
ant was different, and more difficult to assess, than a none-too-productive
slave.
Of course it i� one thing to acknowledge the benefit accruing from labor
and another to endow labor with actual merit. Moreover, such merit as it has
might be construed negatively-as a penance-or positively-as a good in
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 28

itself-or as a combination of the two. for Adalbero, the harsh toil of the
servi is necessary but neither especially meritorious nor beneficial to the la­
borers themselves. For Humbert of Romans and Jacques de Vitry two cen­
turies later, peasant labor is pleasing to God and supports the res publica as
well as the destitute poor dependent on alms, but is nevertheless a penance
enjoined on Adam and his progeny. 63 Within the monastic orders as far back
as Saint Benedict labor was valued as an expression of discipline and piety, re­
taining a penitential significance rather than assuming an unequivocal virtue.
The peasants themselves argued at various times that work is a moral good
and a moral necessity, and that all should labor in obedience to the com­
mands of God to Adam, commands that affected all rather than merely part
of humanity.
In addition to this diversity of attitude among different classes, varying
intellectual legacies from the past also created certain inconsistencies with re­
gard to the value and dignity of labor. Jacques Le Goff describes three lines of
transmission: Judeo-Christian (primarily biblical), classical, and "barbar­
ian. "64 The Bible offered conflicting suggestions in this as in many other mat­
ters. God labored over His creation and rested from His toil on the seventh
day. Adam and Eve were supposed to work to maintain the Garden of Eden
(Genesis 2:15-16); thus, contrary to what is often thought, paradise was not
intended to be experienced in complete leisure, nor was work in itself a con­
sequence of the Fall. Before his disobedience, Adam learned from an angel
how to labor, as depicted in illustrations to Aelfric's Pentateuch and in thir­
teenth-century wall paintings formerly at the female monastery of Sigena, in
Aragon (Fig. 2). Michael Camille, who assembled these and other examples,
also notes that the Book of Jubilees (from the Pseudepigrapha) has the angel
instructing Adam how to work the land before the expulsion from paradise. 65
The sin of Adam was punished by the difficulty of toil, not by the neces­
sity to labor as such. Adam and his descendants would face a difficult struggle
with a resisting, unbountiful nature, a situation worsened by Cain's fratricide,
after which the earth would no longer "yield unto thee her strength" (Genesis
4:12). Instead of an easy custodianship, the relation of humanity to the land
was transformed into harsh (although still productive) labor, just as pain
would now accompany childbirth (the dual meaning of "labor" is found in . _2. Adam being taught by an angel to work. Thirteenth-century painting on the
several languages). ce1lmg of the Monastery of Sigena, Aragon. From a photograph taken before the
Human toil after the Fall involved not only sweat and pain but the brutal Spa�ish Ci�il War, when the monastery was burned. A restoration is now at Museu
domination of nature, as God promised to Noah and his offspring at the Nac1onal d Art de Catalunya, Barcelona. Reprinted by permission of Ar:xiu Mas,
opening of Genesis 9. 66 Nature would not "naturally' ' produce of its free, ef­ Barcelona.
fortless beneficence but would have to be tamed. The biblical image of dom­
ination is twofold, for the statement regarding human power over other
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 30
earthly things is immediately f�llowed by that regarding mastery of one man
over another, the story of the origins of slavery in Noah's curse against his son
Ham. Human power over nature originates in divine command, while the
subjugation of other human beings results from the first postdiluvian trans­
gression, but they are located at the same point in biblical history.
In the New Testament labor appears virtuous, as in Luke 10:7, where
Christ remarks, "the labourer. is worthy of his hire." Paul's Second Epistle to
the Thessalonians contains the famous distillation of the thinking of homo
economicus: "if any man will not work, neither let him eat" (3=10). More often
cited in the Middle Ages, however, was the disdain for material preoccupa­
tions expressed by Christ's praise of the lilies of the field that flourish without
effort (Matthew 6:28).
The classical heritage also praised cultivated leisure and deprecated man­
ual labor, associated as it was with slavery. The value of otium (leisure) could
be grafted onto Christianity, as in the case of Mary's superiority over Martha,
the former signifying the Christian contemplative life, the latter the active
life.67 The Roman era also produced texts in praise of rustic simplicity (such
as Virgil's Georgi-cs and Horace's Odes) that were well known in the Middle
Ages, but these works observe the obvious distinction between the careful
husbandry of the landowner and the forced labor of his slaves.
What Le Goff refers to as the "barbarian legacy," that of the Germanic
and Celtic worlds, placed a high value on craftsmen such as swordsmiths, even
crediting particularly skilled artisans with magical powers. But the exaltation
of war in these cultures, and their identification of wealth with plunder rather
than productivity, assured the celebration of the warrior over the mere toiler.
In the Middle Ages, therefore, it was possible to hold conflicting opinions
of labor and to praise or belittle it for different reasons. From the aristocratic
view, the value of labor was that it produced what was necessary for consump­
tion and display. For the knight to engage in manual or commercial labor was
sufficiently demeaning to amount to abandoning any claim to noble status, an
attitude that would endure as long as the European aristocracy itsel£
While disdain for work may have been encouraged by the barbarian pref­
erence for war over agriculture, the aristocracy also inherited an ideal of
leisure from the Greco-Roman world (although medieval ideals of freedom
from work were of a more bellicose sort than the calm philosophical atmos­
phere of the Stoics). The elaboration of chivalric ceremony reinforced the al­
ready powerful antithesis between labor and war, turning it toward an oppo­
sition between boorish productivity and refined courtesy. Even when the mil­
itary function of the nobility diminished, noble status would endure and
continue to depend on immunity from remunerative work.
The Limits ofMutuality 31
The sociologist Norbert Elias, relying on the drawings collected in the so­
called Mittelalterliches Hausbuch (composed 1475-80), posited a certain ease
and comfort experienced by the nobility as they observed their dependents'
toil. According to Elias the peasants are part of the background scene,
scarcely human and certainly not individually important. They exhibit less
personality and distinction among themselves than the master's hounds.68
Elias argues that it was impossible for the privileged classes to imagine that
the peasants might have grievances or be fully human; but even if we assume
that rustics were most often regarded with contempt, the serene enjoyment
of the results of other people's toil did not necessarily imply the invisibility of
those people.
It is true that in the romances, beginning with Chretien de Troyes, a series
of splendid castles seem to exist with no labor to support them. Their luxuri­
ous if sometimes dangerous accommodations are maintained without much
in the way of visible servitors, whose absence makes the setting all the more
magical. Such rustics as occasionally appear are deformed, solitary, strange,
and not engaged in activity of immediate benefit to the chivalric world.
A somewhat different attitude is reflected by the Tres Riches Heures, the
Book of Hours created for Jean, Duke of Berry, by the Limbourg brothers
(left incomplete in 1416 and finished by Jean Colombe in 1489). Here the
aristocracy is complacent (as Elias imagined) but not unaware of where its
wealth originates. The juxtaposition of castles and scenes of aristocratic
leisure with toiling peasants shows that the work of one class makes the os­
tentation of another possible.69
Of all the intellectual legacies of the past, the Christian attitude toward
work was the most complex and dealt most directly with the peasantry. It is
possible to exaggerate the supposed antipathy of the Church Fathers to secu­
lar labor.70 Nevertheless, the Christian tradition exhibited a consistent mis­
trust of ,the world that combined with the classical praise of philosophical
leisure. Isidore of Seville transmitted to the High Middle Ages a disparage­
ment of those who labored and the results of their efforts. Isidore's Etymolo­
gies contains no word for work other than the mindless toil associated with
slavery.71 Saint Benedict asserted the value of labor, but as a form of expiation
and service to God.
Agricultural labor was accorded spiritual value because of its penitential
quality but also, un9er certain circumstances, because of its benefit to the or­
der and prosperity of society. The fact that his labor supports all gives the
peasant a certain advantage in the next world, according to the theological
compendium by Honorius Augustodunensis, the Elucidarium, written about
IIoo. Discussing the various estates, the master in this dialogue states that
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Sociery 32 The Limits ofMutualiry 33
most rustics will be saved because they live simply and feed the people of unfol� in succession. Their interrelationship outlines the fundamental di­
God by their sweat. Honorius paraphrases Psalm 127:2: "For thou shalt eat m�nsions �; the peasant's image in the Middle Ages. Taking as his text Zach­
7
the labours of thy hands : blessed a rt thou, and it sha ll be well with thee. " 2 anah 13:5, I am a husbandman" (homo agricola ego sum), Jacque s remarks :
Yet in Honorius's work some penitential attributes of work remain, nota bly
Lit�rally, t_he Holy Scriptures truly praise agriculture and manual labor, withou
in his acceptance of the common opinion t ha t servi are descended from t
which society would not be able to survive.After the sin of Adam , Go d en
Noah's cursed son Ham. 73 L abor does confer spiritual benefit but is presented
as the activity of a morally tainted population. Its undoubted merits are set
�· ome
· d penance on him and his sons.... Therefore, those who labor with
. this
mtennon that they fulfill their penance ordered by God will be praised more
alongside an accumulated spi ritual de ficit. and no� less than th?se in the entire church who sing God's praises or keep
As will be seen in later cha pters , the suffering of peasants was regarded as vigil
from mgh_t to mornmg.For we see many poor tillers of the soil who by the
la­
meritorious more commonly than their productivity. To the extent that God �or o� the1� hands sustain a wife and children: and they work more than monks
might be said to favor the peasants , it was beca use of their poverty a nd un­ m their cloister or �l�rics in their churches. If the intention of peasants is to
ful­
just treatment rather than the utility of their efforts. Nevertheless , at le ast an fill the penanc_e enJo�ned on them by God's injunction, then they act in love;
_
occasional attemp t was made to p raise peasants and to exalt their spiritual they will acqmre their temporal sustenance and attain eternal lifce. If however
,
condition because of the results of their work. Sermons written by (or under they are r1k. e the brute ani�als and their intention is not penance but' merely
to
the influence of) the German Fra nciscans Berthold von Regensburg and eat and dnnk, then they will lose grace in this life and their labor will be
for
nought.78
Brother L udovicus praise the peasants on whom all society depends a nd
whose labor earns them merit in God's eyes. If all peasants became knights ,
who would then produce wheat and wine for "us" (a statement echoed by the The Symbolic Plow
fifteenth-century poem cited at the beginning of this chapter)?74 According to
Ecclesias:ical writers , as I have attempted to demonstrate, offered a qual
Brother L udovicus , rustic labor, on which all depend, pleases God. Ill-usage i fied
appro�atton of peasant labor. Peasants engaged in productive toil tha
at t he hands of their lords make s the peasants all the more God's chosen chil­ t fed all
of s ciety. They _ fulfilled God's commands to work a nd s uffered not
dren, a favorable condition not fully realized since they persist in laziness and � only
physica� exhaustion but unjust exploitation. Yet such effort was penite
i niquity. We re it not fo r their t hievery, dishonesty, and perj u ry, peasants ntial
the paymg off of a spiritual debt , rather than an unalloyed good, and
would be saints. 75 The Buch der Rugen, mentioned earlier in connection with th;
the idea that t he "pure" labor of rus tics su pports Christendom, sta tes that reasants t��mselves , by their grasping and debased character, risked forfeit­
mg the spmtual benefi ts of their situation.
their work will bring them to God's kingdom. 76
A German poetical narration and gloss of the Book of Daniel written by a �he activities o� clerics were endowed with more uniformly positive con­
notatt ns , but dunng the High Middle Ages , thei r prayers , serv
member of the Teutonic Order in the mid-fourteenth century lists va rious � ice , a nd
preachmg were presented as a form of spiritual labor that borrow
plants that might have grown on the Plain of Dura where Nebuchadnezzar ed meta­
phors frcrm t e agricultural world. The plow in particular served
set up the golden idol (Da niel p), a nd likens the peasa nts to grass. As in the _ � as the em­
blem of reh�1ous effor�, as symbol of preaching for example , as
Buch der Rugen, here peasants are the foundation of all society; kings , popes , � early as the
works of Samt Euc�enus , b1s�op of Lyons , in the mid-fifth cent
knights , and townsmen depend on their labor. The peasant's toil affords him ury. 79
The plow as a sign of frmtful and virtuous labor is found in the
spi ritual benefit a nd a n eternal crown if he remains a faithful laborer. 77 Book of
P:overbs , where its literal meaning is clearly secular. Those who
Thus a nexus of ideas depicts labor as worthy but penitential, an expia­ work (plow)
will have food, while the idle will languish. 80 In the New Testa
tion of Adam's sin. It confers spi ritual rewa rds , but they depend on patience ment , agricul­
tural labor (and plowing in particular) was used to represent the
and meek devotion. Peasants a re u nfortunate beca use they must work, yet diffusion of
the word ?f God. Christ is the sower of "the good seed," w
blessed because of its supernatural effects; but then again they a re in peril of ith the entire
w�rld �s h is �eld (Matthew 13:37-38). Saint Paul , writing a
l osing this benefit beca use of thei r ma terialism and spiritual torpor. bout his apostle­
ship, likens his task to that of an agricultu ral laborer, eve
Jacques de Vitry, in one of his Sermones vulgares, touches on each of these n an ox. Paul de­
pends on the flock that he nourishes , partaking of their faith,
points succinctly. The statements do not cont radict one another but rather for "he that
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 34
plougheth should plough in hope" (1 Corinthians 9:10). Preaching was
likened to the work of plowing and threshing.
Gregory the Great used the ox and plow to mark the arduous but pro­
ductive duties of the preacher. The image of the "plowshare of the tongue"
would influence the way in which preaching was viewed throughout the Mid­
dle Ages, connoting the vigorous activity that cuts the hardness ofminds that
fail to respond to intellectual methods (reading) and require the furrows of
voluntary affliction to receive the seeds ofexhortation.81
Stephen Barney identifies Gregory as the most important source for the
image of the righteous plowman in William Langland's masterpiece. Piers is a
literal plowman engaged in meritorious labor, but also a figure for the spread­
ing of God's word. The early-medieval coupling of preaching and plowing
eventually affected the image of the plowman, who formerly had been re­
garded as below fisherman or shepherds (apostolic figures) within the class of
laborers. 82 Elizabeth Kirk regarded Langland as more of an innovator, argu­
ing that his virtuous plowman contrasted with a longer tradition of negative
images. 83 Plowmen had their origins with Cain, the first to till the land,
whereas the spiritual ancestor of the shepherds was Abel. It had been shep­
herds, not plowmen, who received word ofthe birth ofChrist. 84
Although Langland was not the first to regard the activity of plowing
with favor or to use it as a metaphor for spiritual labor, his era saw the prolif­
eration of more literal images of virtuous plowing. The plow represented
piety and worthwhile labor in the late Middle Ages, but these remained con­
ceptually distinct despite their many points ofcontact. One might praise the
diligence of the laborer without thereby crediting him with spiritual dignity.
It was quite possible to maintain an image of the plowman as a worthy and
patient worker while considering physical toil itself the punishment for
Adam's sin. The artistic representation oflabor depicted the virtue ofwork as
opposed to the sin oflaziness without thereby necessarily ascribing to the la­
borer a dignified spiritual or social status. 85 Diligent agricultural toil could
symbolize the wickedness of Cain. In artistic representations the efforts of
this supposed progenitor ofpeasants were a negative and literally fruitless ac­
tivity. He is depicted in the Holkharn Bible (1315-21) behind a mixed team of
animals (an anticipatory violation of Deuteronomic laws), furiously but fu­
tilely plowing. 86
What at one time were regarded as quaint or nostalgic evocations ofrural
simplicity in art and literature are now viewed in conjunction with the de­
graded status applied to those who work, a status perfectly in keeping with
their productivity. 87 The modern tendency to equate productivity with moral
character makes it difficult to see how medieval observers might acknowledge
The Limits ofMutuality 35
the utility, necessity, and even virtue of agricultural labor while expressing a
frank contempt for those engaged in it. The peasants laboring for the Duke
of Berry in the Tres Riches Heures are productive but coarse and risible. En­
gaged in tedious labor, they are poorly dressed, graceless, and shameless,
showing their sexual parts. 88 Nevertheless, they are hardly marginal, for they
support the extravagant wealth of the duke. This picture contrasts with the
early-modern depiction ofgrand estates as innately bountiful, as in the world
of Jonson's Penhurst or Carew's Saxharn, "rear'd with no man's ruine, no mans
grone," from which dull labor is missing (along with its practitioners).89
Plowing, therefore, could be ascribed with a positive, productive value
without necessarily being said to confer spiritual benefit. It could symbolize
religious activity without endowing the laborers themselves with virtue; its
spiritual benefits could even be essentially negative. Adam was sometimes
shown behind a plow, or engaged in an even more difficult agricultural labor,
digging with a spade. 90 Plowing might be presented as appropriate to the hu­
man condition while still partaking of a penitential aspect from which the
higher orders were exempt.
The late Middle Ages exhibited a wide register of possible valuations of
plowing, from the unproductive and wicked efforts ofCain to the useful sub­
ordination ofpeasants in the Tres Riches Heures ofthe Duke ofBerry, to Lang­
land's virtuous protagonist. At least in some cases, not only the metaphorical
activity but the actual plowman as well was endowed with sanctity. Chaucer's
plowman (the upright brother of the parson in the Canterbury Tales), or the
earnest peasant who argues with death in Johannes von Tepl's Ackermann aus
Bohmen are examples. By this time, the late fourteenth century, it was possi­
ble to imagine the plowman as holy in himself. I will defer discussion of the
symbolism of the pious plowman and the representation ofChrist as a plow­
man until representations of peasant sanctity are considered (Chapter 10).
Here I '}'Ould like to focus on a less transcendent use of plowing as a
metaphor for virtuous productivity.
As argued earlier, productivity was not necessarily regarded as implying
the rectitude ofthose engaged in labor. Nevertheless, ifmedieval understand­
ing of the dependence of society on the toil of the lowly was ambivalent, it
did at least include the possibility ofendowing symbols such as plowing with
favorable moral connotations. The virtuous plowman would symbolize peace,
diligence, and obedience well beyond the Middle Ages. Bruegel's Fall of
Icarus is perhaps the most famous ofmany images that exalt the orderliness of
the industrious peasant. A plowman is tilling the fields in the foreground
while the reckless Icarus, who sought to change how things in the world are
arranged, plunges unnoticed to his doom.91
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 36
In what we can reconstruct of the discourse of peasants themselves, labor
was unequivocally the measure of piety and social worth. Richard Landes, ex­
amining the heresies that arose in eleventh-century France, pointed to the
positive religious valuation placed on work as one of the unifying features of
these otherwise diverse movements.92 The heretical movements of the eleventh
century at Arras, Monteforte, and elsewhere taught that everyone should gain
his bread by the sweat of his own brow.93 Whether or not one accepts Landes's
crediting of Jewish thought with influencing a Christian sacralization of work,
a case can be made for linking teachings of heretical movements against hier­
archy and the sacraments to a disdain for the clergy, who claimed exemption
from work on the basis of proximity to God and the saints.
One cannot prove a continuity of such beliefs among the common peo­
ple from the eleventh century to the fifteenth, when they became more evi­
dent, but there are some hints at the endurance of such ideas. Emmanuel Le
Roy Ladurie offers a fascinating collection of what amount to proverbial
statements among the followers of the Cathars at Montaillou in the early
fourteenth century. Pierre Authie told Sybille Pierre that he worked not to
avoid poverty but to save his soul. Jean Maury boasted of eating only what
he had earned with his labor because Christ himself said that man must live
by the sweat of his brow. Two parfaits were overheard agreeing that priests
ought to live by their own labor in accord with God's commandment rather
than living off the toil of others.94
In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the notion that all should
work surfaced and proliferated. During the later years of the extended revolt
in Forez (which ended in 1431), the peasants apparently reworked the theme
of the Fall as the origin of manual labor by arguing that all were included in
this expiation of Adam's sin (a version of the argument that all humans are de­
scended from Adam and hence are equal). Since the consequences of Adam's
misdeed were transmitted to all equally, nobles should work just as peasants
do in order to feed themselves.95 Similar ideas were expressed among certain
Bohemian reformers of the fifteenth century. Peter Chelcicky, a follower of
the Hussite movement but a pacifist and so isolated from its most radical cur­
rents, wrote treatises in the 1420s against the idea that the Three Orders had
been instituted by divine decree. God could not have intended for the two
higher orders to live in idle luxury off the labors of the lowly. The theory
never functioned for the benefit of all, Chelcicky claimed, and amounted to
nothing more than an excuse for violent exploitation.96 Chelcicky here dis­
sents from John Wyclif, whom he and others in Bohemia followed in so many
other respects, by rejecting any division of society into orders.97 He argues
that Christ's body is not (as commonly proposed) a metaphor for higher and
The Limits ofMutuality 37
lower functions of a hierarchical society; rather, those who work (and they
alone) form the true body of Christ. The apostles worked with their hands,
and accordingly Chelcicky cited 2 Thessalonians 3=10-n, to argue that no one
should be idle in the manner of courtiers; all should labor.
Such radical ideas were also expressed in 1476 on the occasion of the
abortive pilgrimage led by Hans Behem, a Franconian shepherd (and proba­
bly a serf ) who was later derisively known as the "Piper of Niklashausen."98
Behem was one of many uneducated German rustics of the pre-Reformation
era credited with gifts of prophecy and inspirational preaching. He claimed
to have spoken with the Virgin Mary, who told him that she would perform
miracles and reveal herself to those who followed him to Niklashausen. The
three basic teachings of the movement, according to a contemporary observer
(Lorenz Fries of Wi.irzhurg) were the end of all lordship, universal brother­
hood, and a requirement that all should earn their sustenance with their own
hands.99 Repeated recommendations that all clerics be killed accompanied
the fervid devotion to Mary.100 In a sermon delivered on July 2, 1476, Hans
Behem advised that priests be killed, but also noted that if spiritual and
worldly princes shared what they had, there would he enough for all. More
than this redistribution of property, Behem preached that work is a universal
obligation, to be undertaken even by princes and lords.101
On the eve of the German Peasants' War, the image of the peasant as the
exemplar of piety was still a powerful element of the movement for Church
reform. Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (who at this time actually wore
peasant garb) wrote in a letter to Luther that he wished he were a real plow­
man, peasant, or craftsman. To farm was an honest mortification of the flesh,
a labor pleasing to God.102 In a pamphlet written in 1525, near or at the time
of the revolt, a peasant in a dialogue with a friar condemns the parasitism of
the clergy, who live off the labor of others. The peasant quotes the common
saying "man was born to work like the bird to fly"; all should earn their bread
by the sweat of their brows, like Adam, and, moreover, like Christ.103 Another
Flugschrift recalled the happy former times when nobles went out to the fields
with their serfs.104
That all should work was a theme of the early reform pamphlets. All, in­
cluding clerics and nobles, were included in the requirement that bread be
earned with the sweat of one's brow; thus what some inaccurately interpreted
as a curse falling on one part of the population was rather a divine command
applicable to all. The peasant was regarded as the exemplar of obedience to
God, for, as many popular tracts argued, he feeds all, unlike Jews and shop­
keepers, who live off the impoverishment of others. Craftsmen, pastors, and
the rest must at least aid the plowman, whose labor is the most important.105
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 38 The Limits ofMutuality ·39

At the same time, the late Middle Ages witnessed the most virulent at­ the idea of reciprocal obligations embodied in the theory of the Three Or­
tacks on peasants, in which they were no longer regarded as even useful, let ders, but it was obvious almost from the inception of this model that practice
alone necessary, but instead viewed as unredeemably wicked. A common neg­ did not conform to prescriptive mutuality. Such a contradiction might sim­
ative image of peasants portrayed them as having to be beaten or otherwise ply be lamented or entered in the ledger of sinful humanity's common short­
coerced into working. At a further extreme, rustics came to be regarded as al­ comings. Nevertheless, as will be discussed in the next chapter, the failure of
most without purpose. The canon of Zurich, Felix Hemmerli, writing in the mutuality was disturbing to many and carried with it implications that might
mid-fifteenth century, recommended that peasant farms be destroyed every call for explanations less complacent than the Three Orders, or even serve as
50 years to tame rustic arrogance. 106 Hemmerli, in his own voice, interrupts the basis for justifying revolt.
his imagined dialogue between a knight and a rustic to recall an occasion
when he passed through the Duchy of Baden during the "Hussite'' uprisings.
At an inn he was forced to listen to an insolent group of rustics denouncing
clerical immorality. He answered by saying that outside of Oppenheim he
had seen 24 wheels upon which criminals had been executed. Not one of the
dead was a cleric or noble: they had all been rustics. Had even just one of
higher rank been among them, however, there would be no end of denuncia­
tion of the upper classes for their infamy. After this observation, Hemmerli
recalls, he told his clerical companion that it would be best to leave the inn
immediately. 107
A fifteenth-century poem, the "Edelmannslehre," recommends that no­
bles pillage peasants, rob them of their money, and strangle them. 108 Clearly
they are not useful for anything other than to be plundered. In the literary
tradition of the satiric poet Neidhart, who placed his hapless eponymous
knight in a peasant village, the peasants were impudent, pretentious, and vio­
lent and never engaged in any sort of productive activity. This would be elab­
orated in the late Middle Ages, when Neidhart became a more aggressive
trickster, the "Enemy of the Peasants'' (Bauernfeind) who enjoyed victimiz­
ing the boorish villagers. 109
In fifteenth-century German-speaking regions, therefore, the peasant was
imagined simultaneously as useless and as the provider of wealth; as bestial
and as human exemplar; as an object of derisive or fearful contempt and as
sanctified. For most of the Middle Ages, however, the opinions of articulate
members of the higher orders occupied a narrower range. They agreed, in
large measure, that rustic labor fed and supported the leisure of the rest of so­
ciety. Peasants' subordination might be explained by positing an intrinsic char­
acter that rendered them apt for work. More often, some moral credit attached
to this labor, although this was not to be paid off in any worldly context.
The utility and spiritual worth of agricultural labor made it difficult con­
sistently to represent the peasants as subhuman or their exploitation as nat­
ural. Religious and didactic writers differed as to what recompense, if any, the
peasantry received for their toil. The most widely diffused explanation was

Chapter' 2 mutuality suggested that during some earlier era humanity had been harmo­
The Breakdown of Mutuality
Laments over the Mistreatment ofPeasants
The previous chapter described certain inherent difficulties with the theory
of the Three Orders, in particular the small recompense received by the peas­
ants in return for their labors. It was also argued that the theory, whatever its
visible limitations, was more than a fantasy. It enunciated an ideal that could
be defended and whose failure was cause for reproach. Here we are concerned
with the nature of this reproach and the reaction of medieval observers to the
perceived waning of mutuality, especially their laments over the mistreatment
of peasants. I hope to show that these complaints, although delivered from a
certain fatalistic distance, were not only sincere but significant in influencing
how peasant grievances were articulated.
Almost from its medieval origins, the image of the Three Orders was con­
sidered more an ideal than a reality, but this hardly means that it was an inef­
fective or hypocritical theory of society. In neither the Middle Ages nor the
contemporary world have political and social ideologies been discarded sim­
ply because they were impossible to put into practice. The inevitability of
falling short of the ideal did not excuse those who subverted it. Lords were
warned that if they treated their tenants with excessive cruelty, they would
lose the labor that supported them. This is the point of much of the didactic
literature cited in the previous chapter as well as such literary works as the
"Combat des Trente" (which argues that if the poor are mistreated, the no­
bles themselves will have to work the fields and suffer poverty) and the "Dit
des Avocats" (which condemns the rich who mock the workers on whom
their way oflife depends). 1
The Three Orders constituted both a description of society and an ideal­
ized vision. On the first level, the scheme demarcated and justified social re­
ality, and on the second, it established a standard by which to measure one's
own time. Many critiques of society's insufficient adherence to the model of
The Breakdown ofMutua!iry 41
niously united in mutual service. As early as the Life ofSaint Dagobert (dating
probably to the ninth century), an idealization of the Three Orders was cred­
ited to the past, when everyone performed his duty and remained in his or­
der. Under King Dagobert the priests supplicated God, the warriors served
the king, and the rustics obediently cultivated the land.2 Unfavorable estima­
tions of the present contrasted with a better past-what the Hungarian his­
torian Jeno Szucs characterized as the "sed-modo reaction"-underlay attacks
on those who exploited the service of other ranks of society without recom­
pensing them. Such attacks were of course directed primarily against the
knights. 3 At one time, it was claimed, the military class protected the popu­
lace, but now they exploit them. Felix Hemmerli's virulent antipeasant De no­
bilitate et rusticitate dialogus (Dialogue on nobility and rusticity), written in
1443, has the rustic argue that the nobles have abandoned their role as war­
riors in order to live for pleasure. Even Hemmerli is induced to denounce
"modern" nobles for their exactions and banditry, a charge that the knight in
the dialogue reluctantly accepts.4 Such a contrast could also be drawn for
other orders, as part of a perceived general decline. Late-medieval observers
such as John Gower contrasted the impudent and disobedient peasants of
their day with an unspecified past when service was performed without com­
plaint, the tithe was paid, and order reigned.5
But complaints about deviation from mutual service among the Three
Orders were more than a nostalgic evocation of a happier past. It was recog­
nized that the scheme had a built-in flaw: the likelihood of inordinate ex­
ploitation of the laborers by the knights (and often by the clergy as well).
Adalbero of Laon, while outlining the Three Orders, acknowledged quite
frankly the drudgery and torment borne by the servi of the countryside. As
noted in Chapter 1, Adalbero saw that the laborers were absolutely necessary
to the survival of the other orders but that they clearly received little or noth­
ing for their toil.6
For Georges Duby, Adalbero's planctus expresses only the most superficial
sympathy. Its intent was to obtain submission of the oppressed to their lot,
and the lament thus forms part of Adalbero's overall "reactionary" ideology
designed to serve the dominant classes.7 Adalbero assuredly did regard the
status of the servi with more equanimity than remorse, but Duby's reading
seems contradictory, arguing on the one hand that Adalbero emphasized their
humiliation and on the other that he attempted to convince them that mutu­
ality did indeed reign.8
Some resolution was possible by emphasizing the penitential value of suf­
fering, and we shall see that later authors would urge peasants to bear their
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 42
admittedly unjust lot in the expectation of a future heavenly reward. But this
is not, in fact, what Adalbero argues. He unabashedly states that no fair ex­
change of benefits obtains for the laborers in the world as it is constituted.
His tears may indeed be sanctimonious, and clearly Adalbero is preoccupied
more with the disruption of the orders (including the terrifying vision of a
"deformed" and "vile" peasant wearing a crown while clerics follow the plow)
than with the injustice of exploitation.9 Nevertheless, the passage describing
the lot of the servi reads neither as a counsel to patience nor as a vindication
of mutuality. As Otto Gerhard Oexle has quite effectively argued, embedded
in Adalbero's Carmen ad Rotbertum regem (especially in the above-cited pas­
sage) is an assertion of the value of labor, whose lack of reward is therefore not
simply part of the order of fallen humanity but rather more immediately un­
just.10 If labor were simply an expiation of Adam's sin, or if servitude were the
merited punishment for those who lack discipline (the Isidorian formula­
tion), then the oppression of the toiling servi would be acceptable and unre­
markable. The whole point in positing mutuality, however much it had the
effect (and purpose) of exalting the prerogatives of the dominant classes, was
that labor amounted to a real service, not a purely expiatory act. The absence
of recompense was therefore at least mildly disturbing.
Adalbero was by no means the last clerical observer to recognize seigneu­
rial exploitation, and the same mixture of lamentation and defense of the es­
tablished social hierarchy can be observed in successive generations of cleri­
cal comments. Duby is reluctant to credit clerical complaints as sincere (or
really significant), and regards it as anachronistic to see in them any sort of
attack on the seigneurial regime.11
Despite his belief in their insincerity, Duby assembled a useful group of
complaints over the lot of laborers, complaints that can be approached
somewhat differently. The question to ask is not so much whether one finds
them "sincere" or "insincere" as how one understands medieval social and
political thought. Those who criticized kings and lords in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries were attempting to describe and judge the exercise of
power, which they considered neither totally legitimate nor absolutely inex­
cusable. That they proposed no consistent program of political action does
not make their ruminations irrelevant, and in fact such inconsistency shows
that their writings did not amount to a complacent defense of how the
world was ruled. Not only did writers differ in their opinions from other
writers, but a single author might express a series of attitudes within his own
opus.
As has been often observed, this variability follows from the dialectical
style of medieval reasoning, which attempted to bring order from disorder,
The Breakdown ofMutuality 43
harmony from dissonance. That a consistent opinion might not emerge from
a series of ideas does not mean the author was hypocritical. It was possible,
for example, to denounce the order of society while calling for passivity on
the part of those affiicted. As Philippe Bue has elegantly pointed out, the me­
dieval biblical commentators in particular searched for an equilibrium more
than a synthesis between conflicting images or opinions. This was not an equi­
librium of compromise but a range of responses to social and political condi­
tions of temporal reality. As the divine and human nature of Christ formed a
model of government, so coercion and mercy were both inevitably present in
its exercise. The equality of all humanity was not contradicted by a need for
12
hierarchy or the presence of sin that made hierarchy necessary. Equality
formed one pole of a discourse accommodating notions of resistance to au­
thority and its simultaneous legitimation.
If we examine some of the authors whose lamentations are cited by Duby,
we find certain common images and ways of explanation. Benedict of Sainte­
Maure translated (with some notable additions) Dudo of Saint-Quentin's On
the Character and Acts ofthe First Dukes ofNormandy. In recounting a visit of
Duke William to the monastery ofJumieges and his conversation with its ab­
bot, Martin, Benedict digresses from Dudo to acknowledge, in a speech put
in William's mouth, the oppression of the rustics who sustain the other orders
but suffer severely themselves:
They endure the great scourges
Snow, rain, and wind
Working the earth with their hands.
Terribly uncomfortable and hungry,
Their lives are most bitter,
Poor, destitute, and beggarly. 13
Benedict alters Dudo of Saint-Quentin in reporting a question asked by
Duke William of the abbot: who will be most likely to enter heaven­
knights, clerks, or peasants? (Dudo had listed monks, canons, laymen.) The
abbot responds that those who have served God will receive their reward, but
he does not contradict William's fears that the knights, having committed so
many offenses against Him, will be punished.14
Later in his chronicle, Benedict, here relying on Wace as his source, de­
nounces the Norman peasant rebels of 997, who, inspired by the devil, un­
dertook the great "folly" of trying to be equal to their masters and to throw
off their subordination.15 Benedict and Wace devote considerable attention to
enumerating peasants' grievances over oppressive levies and prohibitions on
· the use of forests and other common lands. Benedict cites their conviction
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 44
that it is better to die or flee than live in misery. He also recalls Wace's state­
ment of their belief in their equality with their masters. 16
Benedict and Wace can hardly be called social reformers, nor (writing
more than 150 years after the event) are they accurate sources for whatever the
Norman rebels actually claimed. Their reported laments, however stylized,
display what peasant grievances were thought to express in the twelfth cen­
tury. The chronicles implicitly acknowledge that the laborers do not enjoy
material benefits from the functioning of the orders in practice.
In the Livre des manieres, written in the late twelfth century, Stephen of
Fougeres bewailed the oppression of the peasantry but more explicitly than
Adalbero or Benedict attributed it to the immoderate demands of their lords.
It is not by reason of the order of creation but rather through a deliberate se­
ries of acts that the peasants suffer. While clergy and knights live off of what
peasants produce, the toilers receive no reward. Here the poor diet of the
peasants (a common theme in antipeasant satire) is an involuntary depriva­
tion, not an attribute of low-born nature:
They don't eat the fine bread;
We have the best grain,
The most pleasant and sound;
The dross is left for the vilain.
If his lord knows he has wine from his vines,
He tricks and traps the vilain
By flattery or menace;
At any rate, he carries it off unjustly. 17
Duby says that Stephen merely "pretends" to sympathize with these ex­
ploited creatures. 18 Stephen is hypocritical, according to Duby, for promising
the peasant a conveniently otherworldly reward on condition of meek forti­
tude and then denouncing the peasants' unwillingness to accept this advice.
If the rustic bore his lot patiently, he would merit salvation before his wicked
social superiors in this life ("the more his life is impoverished, so much the
greater is his merit"). But, Stephen complains, this is precisely what the vi­
lain refuses to do. Mired in impiety, he resists paying tithes, renders no
thanks to God, and is no more grateful than a dog. 19 Stephen's real intention,
according to Duby, is to "consolidate the class barrier. "2° Certainly to mod­
ern eyes the invocation of the life to come and prescription of obedience
seem transparently self-serving. Nevertheless, Stephen's description of the
condition of the rustics is neither insincere nor complacent, but rather reflects
a recurrent problem of justification. The claim that physical labor provides
The Breakdown ofMutuality 45
spiritual benefit could be used as something more activist than a recommen­
dation for quiescence.
The last of the lamenting clerics dealt with by Duby is Stephen Langton,
the indefatigable commentator on the Bible whose denunciations of the op­
pression of the abjecti are worth considering in some detail. Given his elo­
quent and repeated statements,Langton is more difficult for Duby to dismiss
as sanctimonious or hypocritical. Langton is rather more brutally honest than
his contemporaries, Duby acknowledges, but his reaction to the plight of the
rustics is one of horror rather than sympathy, the product of pessimism more
than outrage. 21
Stephen Langton
Langton, a Parisian master, archbishop of Canterbury, and the author of an
extraordinary mass of biblical commentaries, was reputed to have glossed the
entire Bible perhaps two or even three times in separate treatises. Friedrich
Stegmilller's Repertorium contains over 200 entries for Stephen, encompass­
ing overlapping disquisitions. 22 Very little of this oeuvre has been edited, and
the study of the manuscripts (numbering over 120) and their interrelation is
exacting. There are, for example, several versions ofLangton's commentary on
Isaiah alone. In some of them, those that deal exclusively with the moral form
of interpretation, he eloquently and repeatedly condemns the conduct of
those, especially the clergy, who oppress the poor (pauperes). Others, such as
those encompassing the complete fourfold scheme, do not directly invoke
contemporary society.
In an article published in 1930, Beryl Smalley and Gilbert Lacombe ex­
plained the variety and overlapping of the extant commentaries by arguing
that most employed a single interpretive method (such as the moral) that
formed segments of a larger complete gloss encompassing the range of inter­
pretive possibilities. 23 What are most often preserved are literal or moral in­
terpretations of Scripture, portions of a master commenta ry encompassing
the fourfold ways of approaching the Sacred Page (literal, moral, allegorical,
and anagogical).
Smalley and Lacombe disclaimed any sweeping assertion of priority, leav­
ing it open whether the complete gloss was an amalgam of earlier separate
treatises or the reverse: that the much more common single interpretations
were sectioned off from an original compendium. More important is the rela­
tionship among the separate aspects of the composition of Langton's work
that might explain the state of the manuscripts we now possess. Small and
ey
Lacombe drew three conclusions. First, Langton probably wrote at least two
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 46
separate, complete biblical commentaries. Second, what survive include com­
plete as well as literal or moral commentaries. Third, the manuscripts reflect
their origin as lectures given at Paris between n8o, when Langton began his
teaching career, and 1206, when he was named archbishop ofCanterbury.
This brings some order to the apparent chaos of the manuscripts, but
M.-B. de Vaux de Saint-Cyr showed that at least for Isaiah (which particu­
larly concerns us since it occasioned commentary on the iniquity ofthe pow­
erful), the hypothesis of related complete and partial glosses is not particu­
larly helpful. 24 There are 28 manuscripts of Langton's commentaries on Isa­
iah, ofwhich some offer only the moral analysis. None contain solely a literal
interpretation, nor has any "complete" gloss survived (assuming it ever ex­
isted). Moreover, there is an entirely different group ofParis manuscripts that
seem to be glosses of glosses on Isaiah, of which in turn there are long and
short versions. Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine, manuscript 177, for example,
contains a short version of the "gloss to the gloss" (fols. n3-26) and a moral
commentary (fols. 128-56). Paris, Bibliotheque National, 8874 and 14417 are
long versions ofthe second-order gloss.
The gloss to the gloss has nothing concerning the oppression ofthe poor.
The theme is characteristic only of the moral commentaries on Isaiah, but
these too are by no means simple, for they fall into what are certainly differ­
ent recensions, probably different versions altogether.25 Langton's commen­
taries on the minor prophets, especially Hosea, Amos, and Malachi, also are
laced with condemnations ofthe oppression ofthe poor and the arrogance of
the nobility and dergy.26
Despite the extremely complicated textual state of Langton's commen­
taries, certain themes can be discerned that bear on the present study. In his
moralized Isaiah commentaries and in comments on other prophets, Langton
was concerned in the first instance to direct the attention of the clergy to
their pastoral obligations and to warn against greed and covetousness. Pastors
who out of selfishness fail to guard their sheep anger God, he asserts in dis­
cussing Hosea.27 Such ministers, who glory in the things of this world, are
not shepherds but beasts who devour their sheep (commenting on Isaiah
13:20).28
The Troyes and Vienna moralized commentaries on Isaiah are somewhat
more elaborate in their criticism of prelates. Although Langton customarily
refers to the common people in general terms as pauperes (thus following the
Vulgate text oflsaiah), he dearly means not the marginal but those whose ex­
ploited labors support the great princes and prelates. Langton tells us that it is
not the ignorant or stupid poor whose ingratitude toward God Isaiah de­
nounces with the words "The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's
The Breakdown ofMutuality 47
crib, but Israel hath not known me . . . " (Isaiah 1:3). It is rather the powerful
(optimates) who are being castigated. God will judge the depredations of
those who have appropriated the goods of the poor (Isaiah 3:14).29 Citing
Ezekiel 22:27, Langton argues that God accuses the princes, who are like
wolves, shedding the blood of the poor and destroying their souls. Princes
and prelates are the intended targets oflsaiah 3=15: "Why do you consume my
people and grind the faces of the poor." This reminds Langton ofJeremiah
2:34: "in thy skirts is found the blood ofthe souls ofthe poor and innocent."
Clerics and nobles should defend and support their subjects but prefer to
bleed the population, not even bothering to hide their misdeeds, beating and
grinding up the poor.30 The metaphor is elaborated by a distinction between
the prelates who give the orders and their savage underlings who fulfill them,
the former resembling the teeth oflions, while the petty officials are the mo­
lars oflion cubs {taken from Joel 1:6).31
Similar language appears in the English manuscripts of the moral inter­
pretation of Isaiah. In a different comment on the same passage in Isaiah
(3:15), Langton castigates the prelates (the lions). What they do not manage
to seize, their officials (the lion cubs) extort.32 In Lambeth Palace manuscript
71, the passages ofIsaiah 3 (especially verse 12) evoke denunciations of those
"prelati moderni" who violently despoil the goods of their subjects. The im­
age oftearing and eating again appears, but now from the prophet Micah, as
Langton bitterly condemns those who mislead the populace, biting them
with their teeth while preaching peace.33
The Peterhouse and Corpus Christi manuscripts speak even more graph­
ically of those who drink blood, grind the faces of the poor (pauperes), and
adorn their horses via the sweat of the poor.34 The image of drinking blood
also appears in the Lambeth Palace commentary on Amos 1:3, where Damas­
cus refers to blood while Gilead signifies the poor. Damascus signifies the rich
and powerful who drink the blood ofthe poor, despoiling them and oppress­
ing them.35 The previously discussed commonplace that the laborers feed all
the other orders is here graphically illustrated. Not only do the poor feed the
rich indirectly by their labor, they are consumed by their oppressors; it is their
, blood that nourishes the strong.36
The dietary laws of Leviticus served Langton as another occasion for
likening the conduct ofthe oppressors ofthe poor to the thirst for blood. The
tyrants who drink the blood ofthe poor symbolically violate Leviticus 7:26,
"Moreover, you shall not eat the blood of any creature whatsoever." One
meaning of blood here, according to Langton, is the labor and sweat of the
poor, which the powerful ofthis world drink. This is followed by a reference
to the grisly passage of Micah 3=3, "Who have eaten the flesh of my people,
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Societyc 48
and have fiayed their skin from off them: and have broken and chopped their
bones as for the kettle and as fiesh in the midst of the pot." 37 Discussing
Leviticus 3:17 ("neither blood nor fat shall you eat at all"), Langton states that
the reference to eating blood means homicide or the desire to pillage (an in­
terpretation he supports with a citation from Lucan). Even those who do not
actively rejoice in plunder and destruction are in some measure guilty of the
same blood-lust, specifically the powerful who afflict the poor (again citing
Jeremiah 2:34) and are stained with their blood.38
Langton is perhaps unusually insistent and dramatic in his lamentations,
but he is by no means unique. Philippe Bue has recently shown the signifi­
cance of eating as a metaphor for both good and bad forms of governance.
The king nourishes the populace or consumes it.39 Beneficent rule is that ex­
ercised by the Church, according to a tradition based on Genesis 9:2-3.
When God gave dominion over the earth to Noah and his heirs, he permitted
them to exploit its animal and vegetable life. In Gregory's Moralia on Job, this
form of subjugation is contrasted to domination of other human beings in vi­
olation of our original equality, a theme we shall return to in the following
chapter.40 Good government, according to medieval glosses on Genesis 9, is
limited to control over the animal nature of human beings.41 Clerics receive
their subsistence from the laity, but this form of eating is also an allegory of
the Church's transformation of worldly goods and even sin into a spiritual
form of nutrition. The work of preachers, according to a Dominican tradi­
tion based on earlier commentaries, is a form of "spiritual manducation" or a
"sacrament of manducation."42
A more physical and obviously brutal manducation is that of secular
domination, in particular the exploitation of the poor by the powerful. Walter
Map likened the forest keepers of King Henry II (who was responsible for en­
forcing the punitive regulations concerning hunting and poaching) to those
who "eat the flesh of men in the presence of Leviathan, and drink their
blood." 43 Langton bases his denunciations on Peter the Chanter, for whom
the eating of blood in Leviticus 7:26 meant in the first place those raptores
who plunder the helpless. "Blood" is the labor and sweat of the pauperes that
is drunk by the rich and the tyrants of this world.44 In his De miseria condi­
cionis humane, Lotario dei Segni {later Pope Innocent III) laments the de­
graded and exploited condition of the unfree (servi ), quoting Ecclesiasticus
13:23, "the wild ass is the lion's prey in the desem so also the poor are de­
voured by the rich."45
Langton, unlike Stephen of Fougeres, issues no accompanying instruc­
tion to the poor to bear their lot patiently, except by implication insofar as
Langton claims their misery will be transferred to their oppressors in the
The Breakdown ofMutualityc 49
world to come. The poor (pauperes) are the equals of the powerful. In the
46
course of his discussion of Amos 1:9 (the transgressions of Tyre, which "re­
membered not the brotherly covenant"), Langton cites Malachi 2:m: <'Have
we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?"47 But not only are the
poor endowed with ordinary human dignity; they are also blessed, the peo­
ple of God. Commenting on Hosea 1:5, Langton observes that while the rich
and powerful have shut the poor out of any share in the wealth of this world,
they should take care lest the poor eject them from their realm, that of
heaven. "We" must befriend the poor in order that they might receive us in
heaven.48 Oppressive conduct will come back to haunt the wealthy in the
world to come, where they will become the victims of the poor, crying out for
God to hear them (Hosea p).49
Metaphors of cannibalism and of drinking blood would persist beyond
Langton into the late Middle Ages and beyond. The verses Micah 3:2-3
served in the Dominican biblical commentaries organized by Hugh of Saint­
Cher between 1236 and 1239 to describe the brutal exploitation of the poor in
a lurid series of images of boiling, cooking, serving, and eating.50 Jacques de
Vitry, in his Historia occidentalis, imagined the servants of the powerful
shouting to each other to pull apart their victims, crucify, burn, and eat
them! 51 The Franciscan James of Lausanne, commenting on Leviticus in the
early fourteenth century, likened clergy who live luxuriously off the poor to
those who eat bloody meat. Rulers and clergy are like eagles with the blood
of the poor under their wings (Jeremiah 2:34 and Isaiah 40:3).52 A villager of
Montaillou, Belibaste, observed that the pope "swallows the sweat and blood
of the poor." Another, Pierre Maury, scoffed at the Franciscans and their
claims to humilitJ;. They are wolves who would like nothing better than to
devour "us" dead or alive.53 The rich eat the poor, according to a sermon by
Thomas of Wimbledon written in 1388.54 The Czech Hussite pacifist Peter
Chelcicky near the middle of the fifteenth century likened the clerical and
noble orders to gluttons drinking the blood of those who labor while treating
them as'little better than dogs.55
Langton was perhaps the most eloquent high-medieval critic of the ex­
'ploitation of the poor, but complaints over their condition were quite com­
mon, usually divorced from an explicit lament over the failure to observe the
Three Orders' mutuality of service, but always implicitly contrasting oppres­
sion with what were supposed to be the obligations of prelates and nobles. An
important category of denunciations concerned servitude. That certain peas­
ants were held by their lords as serfs was a particularly graphic emblem of
subordination in violation of mutuality and, arguably, of Christian equality. I
shall postpone discussing servitude and condemnations of servile institutions
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Sociery 50
unt_il Chapter IO, where I will bring together the topics of equali ty and expla­
nations (and refutations) of subordination that remain to be explored. Serf­
�om would be attacked in the late Middle Ages and would provoke or at least
mfl�ence many_ of the insurrections of the two centuries before 1525. Beyond
specific complamts over status, medieval laments concerning the oppression
of the peasants repeat and develop certain themes: warnings of the conse­
quences of mistreatment (in terms of God's eternal judgment but also in this
life); comparisons with the wicked behavior of infidels; and comparisons with
the treatment meted out to animals, with a corresponding reassertion of the
peasants' humanity.
Consequences ofMistreatment
Two royal dreams concern the sense of guilt over tyrannical conduct, includ­
ing that t�ward t�e peasantry. Benedict of Sainte-Maure describes a night­
_ Bohemia, where an even more bitter denunciation of the oppression of the
mare of King Wilham II of England on the eve of his mysterious death while
hunting in _the �ew Forest. William dreamt that he was hunting alone,
nearly starvmg with hunger. Desperately looking for food, he entered a
ch��el in which a freshly dressed deer seemed to be lying upon the altar.
Wilham started to devour the carcass, raw as it was, and did not cease even
when_ it was transformed into a man. The dream as interpreted by the bishop
of Wmchester symbolized the king's misdeeds against the people and the
Church.5� �he story also appears in Gerald of Wales and Walter Map, with
some vananons, notably that it was immediately obvious that the body on
the altar was human.57
Joh� of 'Yorcester tells of a dream King Henry I experienced (probably
. tween n30 and n50) states flatly that the lord who is unjust will appear be­
1� n31) m which the king found himself threatened by successive representa­
tives of the estates of society, including a group of peasants who denounced
his oppressive rule, menacing him with their agricultural implements.58
God heeds the groans of the oppressed and punishes their oppressors. As
early as 900, in a collection of the miracles of Saint Bertin, the sighs and
prayers of the helpless, unwarlike common people are heard by God, leading
to the �ownfal ! of the powerful. 59 In Lambert of Ardres's History ofthe Counts
of Gumes (wntten near the end of the twelfth century), the evil Count
Rudolph encounters a group of wretched shepherds who do not know who he
is. He asks them about the count, and they bewail their lot, cursing their ruler.
Rudolph shor�ly �er dies in a tournament.60 At the end of the Middle Ages,
_ fairly divided between them and us. Their satiety was our famine; their mer­
Werner Rolevmck, m his De laude veteris Saxoniae (1478), said that the clamor
of the downtrodden rises to heaven asking revenge against cruel lords.61
It was also possible to imagine that the peasants might themselves inflict
The Breakdown ofMutualiry 51
punishment on their oppressors. The anger of the peasants destroys and
bu rns the lord's castles, according to the thirteenth-century German poet
known as Der Stricker.62 An explicit warning of the consequences of the no­
bles' failure to fulfill their role as protectors of the poor is given in an anony­
mous fifteenth-century German poem. Not only will God punish the wicked,
but the peasant will kill the evil nobles.63 Johannes de Rupescissa, writing in
1356 after the capture of King John II at Poitiers, warned of the impending
wrath of the people against the "tyrannical noble traitors," a catastrophe alle­
gorized as the triumph of the lowly worms against great beasts such as lions
and wolves. Rupescissa, an apocalyptic Franciscan visionary imprisoned by
the papacy in Avignon, foresaw something resembling the Jacquerie, which
would occur two years later. Although the insurrections in his prophetic ac­
count are among a host of horrific visitations of divine chastisement, he
specifically calls the future slaying of the lords by the "afflicted populace" an
act of "popular justice." 64 Rupescissa's prophecies would find resonance in
peasantry was interpolated into a revised text of the Vade mecum drawn up in
1422 in the apocalyptic atmosphere of Hussite Bohemia.65
More frequently, laments over mistreatment of rustics were joined to a fu­
ture, otherworldly reordering in which the meek would be admitted to par­
adise and the wicked punished in the manner of the forest keepers in Walter
Map's anecdote. Invoking divine redress in the life to come constituted a
warning to the powerful but also to the victims, lest in their impatience they
should be tempted to exact a more immediate vengeance. We have seen that
in Langton the powerful need the assistance (prayers) of the weak in order to
be saved. The Cai;inthian author of the poem "Yorn Rechte" (written be­
fore God as a serf while the serf will be free if he fulfills the divine ordi­
nances.66 English preachers of the fourteenth century condemned the rich,
who would burn in hell while those they ground under them would be
blessed: In Literature and the Pulpit, G. R. Owst cited the Augustinian John
Waldeby, the Franciscan Nicholas Bozon, and especially the Dominican
preacher John Bromyard, whose Summa Predicantium (early fourteenth cen­
tury) vividly imagines the rich confronted in heaven by those whom they
starved, beat, and extorted. The sufferers will air their complaints at length
before God, demanding vengeance for the absence of recompense for their
labors, the failure of mutuality: "O just God, mighty judge, the game was not
riment was our wretchedness." 67 The demands of the poor for justice are the
inverse of their earthly prayers for those who give them charity. In both cases
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 52
the poor are heard by God because of their wretchedness. In the world to
come, those "who here on earth are called nobles" shall blush in shame at
their transgressions and fearfully await their punishment.
On this issue, as on many topics, the German didactic poet Hugo von
.
Tnmberg most exhaustively reproduces the range of common attitudes. In
Der Renner (ca. 1300), a long compendium of moral and scientific learning
(with particular reference to the vices), Hugo complains about the tyrannical
lords who force the poor to work for them, an act worse than diabolical, for
even the devil himself stops short of demanding service against one's will.68
Hugo returns to the theme of the violence and pillaging committed by
knights against the poor. How does it happen that the Jews, according to
Leviticus, incurred such severe punishment from God for relatively minor
transgressions while wicked Christians seem to be able to despoil peasants
with impunity? To the extent that their crimes are allowed to wax on earth,
their ultimate punishment will be greater.69 The robber-knights will burn in
hell for their conduct.70 Hugo also remarks that they are worse than pagans,
who indeed would not treat a dog thus. So gravely have these nominally
Christian oppressors jeopardized their souls that they need preaching more
than the infidel overseas.71
The invidious contrast between pagan and Christian conduct would also
figure in the Reformatio Sigismundi (1439). Here servitude rather than plun­
der or direct exploitation is the object of the writer's anger. The man who
calls another his serf is not a Christian but resembles an infidel in his defiance
of God's law.72 In fact, he is worse than a "pagan," as the author demonstrates
by a story about a Turkish "duke" who supposedly visited the Council of
Basel. Exhorted to convert by those he met at the gathering, the wise Turk ac­
knowledged the appeal, even the truth of Christianity as set forth in Scrip­
ture, but reproached Christians' propensity to wicked actions such as perjury
and the oppression of other Christians as serfs. The Crusade (meifart) is un­
favorably compared to the more useful task of redeeming those already sup­
posed to be Christians.73
The Hungarian peasant insurrection of 1514 actually began as a crusade
against the Turks, but self-serving opportunism on the part of the nobles,
compounding the longstanding misery of the peasants' living conditions, in­
duced the peasant crusaders to turn upon their masters. Why should they
fight the Turks when their own nobles treacherously refused to sacrifice for
the common effort, continuing their extortionate (and unchristian ) con­
duct?74 In a chronicle of the Hungarian rebellion written in 1576, the Italian
religious exile Gian Michele Bruto rebuked the Hungarian nobles for falling
on their own populace with arms that should have been directed against
the
The Breakdown ofMutuality 53
Turks. The peasants, he lamented, suffered not from Turks or Scythians but
from those of their own nation.75 A similar accusation in a Swiss war-song of
1495 directed against the Swabian League attacks the nobles for seeking to
conquer Christians when they should be upholding their responsibility to
fight the Turks.76 The idea of mutuality could be used to justify not simply
the castigation but even the destruction of a noble class that had not upheld
its duties to protect the other orders. Chroniclers of the French ]acquerie (no­
tably Jean Froissart and Jean de Venette) have the peasants justifying their re­
volt by condemning the nobility for betraying the country and the military
obligations of their rank.77
Thus, although it was a hegemonic ideology that could serve to justify
social domination, the theory of the Three Orders could be turned against
those in whose favor it was elaborated in situations where their dereliction was
dear. One way to appropriate mutuality in favor of the peasants was to join it
to invidious distinctions between pagans and Christians (the argument of the
Reformatio Sigismundi). Not only would pagans not behave as wickedly as pu­
tatively Christian nobles, but peasants were treated by their fellow Christians
as if they were pagan. Stephen of Fougeres had observed in the twelfth cen­
tury that those whom the knights pillage rather than defend are Christians,
not pagans or "Syrians."78 In the Crown of Aragon, where arbitrary lordship
was symbolized by the treatment doled out to local rural and urban Muslim
populations, some Christian tenants lodged a complaint in 1323 against their
lord, accusing him of treating them "worse than Muslims."79
But the image of the treatment meted out to animals would become the
most common (and vivid) statement of the injustice of the lords' exploitation.
Antipeasant satire .ind diatribe commonly likened peasants to wild or domes­
ticated animals as a way of demonstrating their stupidity, their subordination,
and, most of all, the appropriateness of their mistreatment. The greater the
distance between them and what might be considered full humanity or equal­
ity with their social superiors, the less disturbing their subordination.80 The
association of subhuman and, in particular, bestial characteristics with the
peasantry could, however, be taken in the reverse direction: that they were hu­
mans but treated as badly as animals (or worse). Thomasin von Zerclaere, a
Friulian who wrote a didactic poem in German (ca. 1215), lamented that free
men were enserfed and dealt with as livestock. 81 More matter-of-factly,
Robert of Cour�on distinguished three sorts of servi, the lowest being those
(such as were supposedly found in Apulia and Sicily) who were bought and
sold like sheep and cattle (sicut oves et boves). 82 A text attributed to the Fran­
ciscan preacher Berthold von Regensburg remarked that lords made sure their
animals were better nourished than their peasants.83
 Peasant Labor, Hierarchical Society 54 The Breakdown ofMutuality 55

The peasants of the era of the German peasant wars complained that they should punish those, like Lucifer and his rebel angels, who defied God, but
were treated like animals. The eighth article of the Salzburg peasants' de­ the rustics were men, formed like their lords. Why should they then be kept
mands (1525) condemns serfdom, likening the oppre ssion of the serf to that under like beasts?89 The chronicler Wace, writing in the twelfth century about
of an animal led around by the nose. Serfs were treated as cattle only more the Norman peasants' revolt of 997, has them claim that they are men just as
tyrannically.84 A declaration of the peasants of the abbey of Ochsenhausen (in their masters are, with the same members, hearts, and sensitivity to pain. 90
Upper Swabia), also from 1525, said they should no longer be sold like cattle
or sheds, "for we all have one lord, that is God in heaven."85 The peasants of
the abbey of Kempten, who had long struggled over their rights and status Laments over mistreatment were directed against the perceived failure of mu­
with their monastic lords, claimed their condition was worse than that of serfs tuality. The peasants fed the other orders, and even the least realistic of chival­
or dogs.86 ric writers grasped this basic dynamic of the medieval economy. 91 If the peas­
The animal-like subjugation of rustics represented the logical outcome of ants were indeed oppre ssed, it could be argued, this was owing to some mer­
the breakdown of the Three Orders. If they were deprived of what was owed ited punishment-for Ham's sin against Noah, for example -or their inferior
them by the rule of mutuality, the peasants ceased to have any standing or or even subhuman nature. In some sense, howeve r, the humanity of the peas­
dignity and were ultimately deprived of their humanity. Tomas Miere s, a ants, their status as Christians, and especially the moral and rhetorical force of
Catalan jurist of the early fourteenth century, in a marginal note to one of statements of human equality made it difficult consistently to place them
the basic Roman law treatments of servitude, wrote that serfs must be treated outside society as objects of a thoroughly de served exploitation.
humanely. They are men and so should not be killed, dismembered, or oth­
erwise mistreated. This was not a vague theoretical statement but an impor­
tant declaration in a territory that recognized a legal right of seigneurial mis­
treatment.87 Towards the end of the Middle Ages, Peter Chelcicky argued
(against Wyclif ) that the three fold division of society had never worke d for
mutual be nefit. The lords and prie sts "ride the working pe ople as they will."
If the three orde rs really did represent the body of Christ, the lowe r order
would have the greatest honor, but this is visibly not the case; peasants, shep­
herds, and beggars are scorned and insulted by the powe rful, who refer to
them as "bl"1sters," "screech-ow1s, '' "horne ts," "Iouts," or s1mp
· Iy (as sufficient
88
insult) "peasant."
The complaints of peasants varied from place to place. In some areas
servitude was a major issue, in others, taxe s or free access to forests or a host
of local economic issue s. At time s, what now appe ar to be rather spe cific
grievance s were couched in a grandiose rhetoric of human dignity and Chris­
tian truth, but that rhetoric is of interest in itsel£ However we may regard the
import or background of peasant demands, they tended to center around a
reiteration of humanity and of piety (in which Christianity is a proof or man­
ifestation of humanity).
Even those, like Froissart, who regarded the peasants with contempt and
hostility could imagine their complaints of bondage on the basis that they
were men, like their lords, not beasts. Froissart portrays the English rebels of
1381 as arguing that servitude had not existed at the beginning of the world
(the original equality of humanity proven by its common origin). Servitude
 Part' 2
The Origins of Inequality
 Chapter' 3
Equality and Freedom at Creation

Complaints over mistreatment and exploitation found warrant in an ostensi­

ble common humanity that such conduct violated. No one claimed that all
people should enjoy the same rank, but many commentators believed that
degrading peasants to the condition of beasts or objects negated an underly­
ing equality of the most basic sort. What follows examines the forms and im­
plications of this notion of fundamental equality.

Adam and Eve

A poem by Walter von der yogelweide asks who could tell a serf from a lord if
he found their skeletons? Even had he known them both while they lived,
their worm-devoured remains would demonstrate their underlying equality. 1
Death is the ultimate proof of our essential resemblance regardless of status.
The Dance of Death, an evocation of pessimism and materialism that was
very popular in the late Middle Ages, presented the overwhelming impress of
mortality but was also a reminder of the imminent obliteration of worldly
distinction. 2
Acknowledging the common fate of humanity hardly constitutes a revo­
lutionary egalitarian assertion. Johan Huizinga observed that late-medieval
�galitarian statements were devoid of social import since they did not propose
to mobilize cosmic equality in an effort to level worldly hierarchy. Huizinga
quotes from a ballad by Eustache Deschamps that joins human equality in
the face of death to an even more ubiquitous topos of equality, the common
ancestry of all people. Deschamps has Adam asking his distant offspring how
noble and villein differ, for they are all "covered by the same skin"; they are
all his descendants. Death holds the reins for princes and the poor alike. 3 In
the thirteenth century the jurist Philippe de Beaumanoir began his discussion
 The Origins ofInequality 60
of servitude by noting that in the beginning all were free, for we are all the
offspring of a single father and mother. This does not materially affect the in­
stitution of servitude, which arose through a variety of historical factors ac­
cording to Beaumanoir, but nonetheless it is generally a bad thing to hold
Christians in bondage and a good thing to free serfs.4
Stylized and politically empty as such statements might be, they formed a
conventional repertoire concerning equality that could be shaped in a num­
ber of practical directions. If universal helplessness before death manifested
the fundamental equality of all, the single origin of humanity did so even
more polemically because it implied a wicked deviation from a better, earlier
practice. "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?" Com­
menting on this passage from the prophet Malachi (2:10), Stephen Langton
denounced the avaricious who refuse charity and despise the poor.5 Ultimate
equality in death may mock current pretensions to superiority, but original
equality at creation renders such pretensions potentially unjust usurpations.
The best-known medieval statement concerning human equality and
common descent is a couplet associated with the English Peasant War of 1381:
"When Adam dalf and Eve span, Who was thanne a gentelman?" (When
Adam delved and Eve spun, who was then a gentleman?) According to
Thomas Walsingham, writing in 1390, the verba proverbii of the couplet fur­
nished the text for a sermon given by John Ball to the rebels assembled at
Blackheath. 6 A similar poetic proverb was commonly recited in England dur­
ing the decade before the Peasants' War:
When Adam delf and Eve span,
Spire [i.e., 'ask"], if thou wil spede,
Whare was than the pride of man,
That now merres his mede?
Of erth and slame, als was Adam,
Maked to noyes and nede,
Ar we, als he, maked to be
Whil we this lyf sal lede.7
Adam as universal father, an undeniable tenet of Christian belief, could
be used to buttress three related assertions: fundamental equality, the illicit
nature of servitude, and the hollowness of pretensions to innate nobility.
These statements are not quite interchangeable, since it would, for example,
be perfectly possible to attack the perquisites of noble status without thereby
advocating the abolition of serfdom. It is also one thing to assert the primor­
dial equality of humanity and quite another to demand its restoration. The
shaded meaning of the couplet as well as its pointedness gave it a certain cur-
Equality and Freedom at Creation 61
rency in the late Middle Ages (the rhyme works in several languages), but not
always in the context of the same argument.
The proverb could be linked to the idea that all should labor, that work
was the common obligation of humanity on the model of Adam and Eve. As
a rallying cry it demanded the end of servitude, which violated the basic hu­
man equality implicit at Creation. After invoking the Adam and Eve couplet,
John Ball's Blackheath sermon continued with the statement that all were
equal by nature and that serfdom was a form of oppression introduced
against the will of God, who, if He had wished to create serfs, would have
separated them from lords at the moment of creation. 8
Other orders of society, however, did not draw such radical conclusions
from the proverb. Creation merely established an original favorable situation,
after which the elaboration of privilege and its opposite, servitude, took place.
Fortune, character, or human law might be said to modify fundamental
equality (the ius gentium as opposed to ius naturalis); or some specific occur­
rence in the past (the Fall, Noah's curse upon Ham, or a historical event)
might be claimed to have destroyed the egalitarian happiness of paradise. An
ur-human equality did not necessarily remain valid throughout history, nor
did it inevitably accord with divine will as played out in secular time.
The propositions that God created human beings to be equal and that all
are descended from Adam and Eve were not in themselves complex or even
really debatable. The real challenge was to explain what had happened to un­
dermine equality. Was the falling away from equality natural and licit, or the
result of sin and force? Should or could actions in the present restore the pris­
tine balance? Answers varied according to how durable (or renewable) the
first form of society was supposed to be: whether human equality perished ir­
retrievably with Adam's Fall (or Ham's mockery of Noah), or whether Christ
had restored it in something more than a spiritual sense.
The couplet about Adam and Eve is found inLatin and several vernacu­
lars.9 Although it became a proverbial statement in written sources only in
the late Middle Ages, some evidence suggests that Adam and Eve were in­
voked in earlier assertions of equality, as in the movement known as the Ca­
puciati, or "White Capes," in central France of the u8os. 10 Even earlier, in
Adalbero ofLaon's Carmen ad Rotbertem regem (ca. 1025), the disorderly soci­
ety, the world-upside-down, is symbolized not only by peasants wearing
crowns but by undressed bishops and monks following the plow "singing the
songs of the first parents," possibly an allusion to an ancestor of the couplet.11
Whatever its precedents, the couplet really became widely current only in
the late Middle Ages, but it then appeared everywhere. Sylvia Resnikow
,
demonstrated in 1937 how widespread was the use of this "democratic prov-
 The Origi,ns ofInequality 62
erb. "12 It emerges in a German poem of the fifteenth century known as "Das
Gedicht vom ersten Edelmann," which praises the peasant and skeptically
questions the basis for nobility, since both wicked and pious are descended
from Adam and Eve.13 A fifteenth-century manuscript written in Nuremberg
(presumably for an urban audience) phrases the couplet somewhat differ­
ently: "Wo was ein graff, ritter und edelman,/ do Adam hackt und Eva
span?" 14 A Swedish adaptation of the chess-game allegory of Jacobo de Ces­
solis, written between 1476 and 1492, states: "ho war tha een adela man/ tha
adam groff ok eua span?"15 There were also Dutch, Czech, and Polish versions
of the couplet, according to Resnikow. 16
A more recent discussion by Albert B. Friedman takes issue with Resni­
kow's rather literal interpretation of the couplet as a program for social
change.17 Although invented relatively late in the Middle Ages, the couplet
expresses an opinion common long before the spate of major peasant rebel­
lions: that all are descended from one set of ancestors. Boethius, in The Con­
solation ofPhilosophy, asserted that all humans are born in the same way and
through the same Creator who fashioned them from noble seed. 18 Indeed,
positing a universal ancestor or a common creation is an ancient common­
place directed against excessive pride in noble origins. The corollaries, that
true nobility does not depend on blood and that noble birth does not guar­
antee noble conduct, are found in Boethius and earlier, in the Greek philoso­
phers (e.g., the Sophists and Aristotle) and playwrights (Euripides and Me­
nander).19 The notion that deeds or virtuous conduct rather than blood are
the true markers of nobility does not mean equality of legal standing, still less
literal economic egalitarianism. Melanchthon reported the riposte to the cou­
plet made by the emperor Maximilian in the form of another rhyme, which
acknowledged that the emperor was a man, like other men, different only in
that God had given him high rank.20 The subversive implications of the
Adam and Eve argument could be answered by reference to diversity in hu­
man fortunes, all of which must accord with the will of the all-powerful deity.
The couplet did not necessarily, then, imply a program of absolute social
equality. It might simply encapsulate the complaint against excessive pride in
ancestry. One finds the lines ''Als Adam grab und Eva spann, Wo war denn
da der Edelmann?" in the Augsburg weavers' guildhall, where it was clearly
aimed by townsmen against the nobility, without implying a demand for the
emancipation of rural serfs. 21 The poet John Gower, whose denunciation of
the English Rising of 1381 is among the most vitriolic antipeasant documents
of the entire Middle Ages, nevertheless (both before and after 1381) belittled
claims to nobility or "gentilesce" by invoking the common descent of all from
Adam and Eve.22 Resnikow cites a poem by Hans Rosenpli.it of Nuremberg
Equality and Freedom at Creation 63
that uses the image of Adam digging and Eve spinning not as proof of equal­
ity but to depict labor as the consequence of sin:
When Adam tainted himself by eating [the apple]
Then God commanded him to win his bread
By tilling the soil and Eve by spinning
In sweat, their faces turned towards the earth. 23
Resnikow considers Rosenpli.it's lines a "misinterpretation," but in fact it does
not inevitably follow from common parentage that our present condition
must be equal.
Yet this statement of original equality was both sufficiently well known
and sufficiently subversive in its implication to be consistently put into the
mouths of lower-class characters by learned observers. Andreas Capellanus
has his "plebian" would-be lover argue with a noble lady that since all come
from Adam, no one can claim unique aptitude for love on the basis of rank.24
Chroniclers and didactic writers depict peasant rebels as trotting out Adam
and Eve to justify their grievances. Original equality was the one peasant ar­
gument with which noble, urban, and clerical observers were familiar. We
find the couplet about Adam and Eve in Walsingham's description of John
Ball's sermon, and Froissart reports that arguments from equality at Creation
were promulgated during the English rebellion.25 In imagined peasant dis­
courses, the didactic poet Hugo von Trimberg, the political controversialist
Felix Hemmerli, and the satiric poet Heinrich Wittenwiler have their peasant
spokesmen argue their equality with the nobles on the basis of common de­
scent from Adam and Eve only to be refuted. The refutations do not deny
original similarity but posit subsequent distinctions deriving from Noah's
curse or some other hereditary basis for social differentiation: whatever the
origin, from that point on there have been nobles and subordinates, an in­
evitable result of history after the Fall.26
The fifteenth-century Book ofSt. Albans, a miscellaneous collection of lore
best known for its catalogue of collective nouns for animals, imagines "bonde
men" as arguing that all come from Adam, a view that is contemptuously
dealt with.27 Machiavelli, in his account of the Ciompi uprising in Florence
(1381), has the rebels argue that boasts of noble blood are vain since all men
come from equally ancient lineage, having as they do a common beginning.
If rich and poor exchanged garments, they would reverse the appearance of
nobility and baseness; poverty and wealth differentiate men, not nature.28
Thus the couplet was used to justify equality in both radical and com­
monplace observation, hut it was regarded by the articulate classes as the quin­
tessential lower-class argument against privilege and for equality here and now.
 The Origins ofInequality 64

Original Equality
That originally all were equal and that common descent from Adam confers a
single human character are sentiments and assertions that can be found in
medieval writers long before the invention of the Adam and Eve couplet. One
could cite Adam's ancestral role to underscore the folly of human pride with­
out thereby proposing any revision of the social order. Thus in two chansons
de geste of the mid-fourteenth century the nature of true nobility is said to
amount to something other than lineage. The father of the hero of Hugues
Capet is a knight, but his grandfather is a wealthy Parisian butcher.29
This version of the Capetians' ancestry is first found explicitly in Dante's
Purgatorio (20.49-52), completed in 1315. Here it has a distinctly unfavorable
connotation, and the legend of the Parisian butcher, which probably goes
back to the mid-thirteenth century, was regarded as an anti-Capetian slur.
This legend of the lowly origins of the Capetians, including a variant that has
Philip the Fair rescued (by reason of his handsome appearance) from a
butcher's shop, was brought to England and popularized at the time of the
Hundred Years' War.30 In France itself, the Chanson de Hugues Capet (mid­
fourteenth century) alludes to the butcher shop as an example of the moral
superiority of character over birth. High lineage is all very well, but in fact we
all are descended from Adam, the author remarks, so that true nobility can­
not be by blood alone.31 In Baudouin de Sebourc, written at the same time
and in the same milieu as Hugues Capet but by a different author, "gentle" na­
ture is from good character, not birth, since we all come from Eve and our
common father is Adam.32
W hat was Adam's social rank? While he could hardly have been a tenant
farmer, he was logically an agricultural laborer, for the Book of Genesis de­
scribes him after the Fall as destined (or cursed) to toil, to gain his bread by
the sweat of his brow. This applied to human beings generally; thus in com­
menting on Zachariah 13:5, Peter the Chanter describes Adam as the exem­
plar of the human species, for all of us, like the agricola, eat our bread by the
sweat of our brow.33
While many regarded Cain as the first peasant (because of the nature of
his rejected offerings to God), his father could also be depicted as an agricul­
tural worker. In a fifteenth-century Nuremberg Carnival play entitled simply
Ein Spil von der Vasnacht, the mockery of peasants, a usual feature of su�h
ork after the Fall: Adam digging, Eve spinning. Another thirteenth-century
plays, is condemned, for no one ought to mock his parent, and Adam was a • 3-_ W:
P�1 �tmg m the Monastery of Sigena. From a photograph taken before the Spanish
peasant who called all of us "my children." 34 In the stained glass of the
Civil War, when the monastery was burned. A restoration is at Museu Nacional
clerestory at Canterbury and the nave at Chartres, Adam is shown digging d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona. Reprinted by permission of Arxiu Mas, Barcelona.
 The Origins ofInequality 66
with a spade, muscular, miserably half-clothed, but at the sa�e time re�em­
bling Christ with his long hair and facial type. H� uses somethmg �ore like a
pick or mattock in the mural formerly at the Sigena monastery m Aragon
(Fig. 3) and in mosaics at Monreale and the Palermo Palatine Chapel.35 Late­
medieval German songs asserted that the first man God created was a peas­
ant.36 In late-medieval Scandinavia, rather exceptionally, Adam was shown
plowing.37 Just as Christ was the new Adam, restoring humanity to spiritual
life, He also might be represented with a plow or a spade, and the peasant
could assume a symbolic significance for spiritual labor.38
As discussed earlier, the plow and the activity of plowing could serve as
either favorable or unfavorable symbols. The plowman represented piety, pro­
ductive labor, even preaching. At the same time plowing denoted de�ased sta­
tus and earthly toil.39 Adams labor could be regarded as a productive model
for virtuous conduct in the world or, as in Rosenpliit's poem cited above, a
punishment that most immediately affected those �ho perform manual (es­
_
pecially agricultural) work. One could also regard this form of toil as not only
_ _
valuable but of higher moral worth than any other lay callmg, argumg fro�
common descent and from Adams duties that all people, regardless of condi-
tion, should work with their hands.40
In didactic literature treating the estates of society, however, the common
descent of humanity did not invalidate the hierarchical ordering of society.
Equality in Adam was used to argue that one should be content i� the rank
one was allotted.41 Far from violating original equality, mutual service among
the Three Orders might be regarded as its legacy in a sublapsarian world of
diverse conditions. To the extent that mutuality was perceived not to work in
practice, however, the question of common descent became more critical. If
_
the nobility did not fulfill its duty of defense, then should not society revert
to its earlier egalitarian form?42
The unitary origin of humanity did not necessarily mean that all should
subsequently remain equal It might mean that all should work, or again �hat
all should be free, that slavery and servitude are illicit. Shared ancestry might
also mean that humanity shared a perhaps minimal but inviolable dignity.
Such interpretations fostered a potentially radical turn to one of the most
venerable of learned cliches, the vanity of pride in noble birth. Behind the al­
most banal statements of common origin or the superiority of virtuous con­
duct to noble status could be discerned, at various times, the program of John
Ball. Crucially, the presence or absence of peasants determined the force of
the statement.
We might take as an example of the argument of fundamental equal-
ity the German translation of Petrarch's On the Remedy ofBoth Kinds ofFor-
Equality and Freedom at Creation 67
tune, a series of parallel dialogues consoling those who lament their misfor­
tunes and correcting those whom fortune for the moment has favored. The
German version, ¼m der Artzney bayder Gluck, was printed in 1532, but its
woodcut illustrations by the so-called "Petrarch Master" were created about
1517, before the German Peasants' War of 1525 and so during the years when
peasants were commonly imagined and portrayed as long-suffering and
holy.43
The illustrations often elaborate on, significantly sharpen, or even change
the points of the text. Petrarch was not especially favorably disposed toward
rustics. He has Reason dispute those who rejoice in fertile land by observing
that although formerly virtuous, rustics are now wicked and of classes of soci­
ety the least likely to recover the good customs of the past.44 The Petrarch
Master, however, was outraged at the oppression of the peasantry, and his
woodcut engravings show the cruelty of judges, stewards, and lords. Petrarch
had stated in rather general terms that there was no such thing as a "good
lord" because lordship limited one's freedom and property, and because the
only true lord was God Himself, but the Petrarch Master exemplifies the no­
tion more vividly, showing bedraggled rustics brought with their wrists tied
before a group of richly clad magnates.45 Petrarch's consolation to a serf in the
Book of Misfortunes repeats the Stoic and patristic distinctions between the
inner and outer man, but under this heading the Petrarch Master depicts
(Fig. 4) a peasant being flogged.46 In another example, what for Petrarch was
a comic instance of bad fortune-being importuned by impudent ser­
vants-becomes in the German version the cruel punishment of underlings.
The complaint of "Sorrow" about his unruly servitors is accompanied in the
German translation by a scene in which two men are being whipped while a
third is about to have his tongue cut out.47 In a woodcut for a translation of
Cicero's De officiis, the Petrarch Master imagines a cosmic judgment in which
a balance scale holds a bound and gagged peasant on one side and an armed
knight kneeling in prayer on the other. Despite (or because of) their pos­
tures, the peasant in the balance outweighs the knight. His suffering in this
life confers spiritual benefit, whereas the knight's conduct condemns him, no
matter what his professed piety.48
To return to the German version of Petrarch's De remediis, one of the dia­
logues concerning good fortune discusses noble birth ("De origine genrosa",
translated as "Von adelichem Ursprung").49 "Joy" (Freud) is chided by "Rea­
son" (Vernunft). Joy delights in his noble origins while Reason ridicules his
pride. Petrarch's text pointedly, elegantly, and quite conventionally begins by
deriding the supposition that noble blood is in itself virtuous.50 The question
of whether birth, feats of arms, or virtue conferred true nobility was charac-

4. Mistreatment of serfs. Woodcut engraving (1517) by the so-called Petrarch
Master. From Petrarch, Von der Artzney bayder Gluck (Augsburg, 1532), fol. 8v.
Reprinted by permission of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden
Foundations, Spencer Collection, New York City. Photo credit: Robert D. Rubie,
New York City
Equality and Freedom at Creation 69
ceristic of chivalric and humanist discussions throughout the late Middle
Ages.51
Petrarch notes that all blood is the same color and that a renowned father
is seldom followed by an equally worthy son. Nobility depends on the way
one's life and death unfold; it is not a matter of birth. Petrarch then states
chat all mankind has a common origin. Over time the same blood ha$ pro­
duced individuals of high and low rank, so that, quoting Plato's Theaetetus,
"there is no king who did not come of slaves, and no slave who did not come
of kings."
The woodcut (Fig. 5) is directed to this part of the text, but provides a
more puzzling image. It represents the estates of society as a tree, but with a
paradoxical configuration. The different orders are hierarchically arranged in
reference to the roots and branches of an immense larch tree. Two rustic la­
borers suffer at its base, enmeshed in the root system, groaning as they clutch
their implements of toil. They support above them first merchants and arti­
sans, then bishops and kings, and then the pope and the emperor. At the top,
however, are two rustics identical to the crushed pair at the base, one perhaps
a shepherd playing his bagpipes and the other sleeping, his pitchfork held at
rest. The humble men at the top seem to be enjoying an ostentatious, even
contemptuous ease: the foot of the bagpipe player rests casually on the pope's
shoulder.
There are several possible interpretations of this woodcut, none of them
completely satisfactory. Like the Adam and Eve couplet, it conveys a truism
but with a certain potentially subversive edge. Indeed, a later edition of Von
der Artzney (1539), with a different translator, reproduced the estates-tree il­
lustration accompanied by the German version of the couplet.52 According to
Walter Scheidig and Herbert Zschelletzschky, who wrote in East Germany,
the Petrarch Master sounds a call to revolution, exalting the struggle of the
oppressed for justice.53 This view is opposed by the Renate and Gustav Rad­
bruch, who demonstrate that the estates-tree was a popular theme illustrative
of social reciprocity. The decoration of the town hall at Oberlingen (from
1494), for example, features a tree very much like the later design of the Pe­
trarch Master. Trees were used as metaphors for the varieties of love and mil­
itary service (e.g., Honore Boner's influential L'Arbre des batailles) as well as
the estates of society.54 The Petrarch Master's illustration, according to the
Radbruchs, follows Plato's suggestion that kings are descended from rustics
(if not literally slaves), and rustics from kings.55 The tree thus has a genealog­
ical purport, resembling the Tree of Jesse or other depictions of lineage, such
as the arbor consanguinitatis, showing the degrees of consanguinity barring
marriage.
 /
5. A tree representing the social estates. Woodcut engraving (1517) by the
Petrarch Master. From Petrarch, Von der Artzney bayder Gluck (Augsburg, 1532),
fol. 17r. Reprinted by permission of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox,
and Tilden foundations, Spencer Collection, New York City. Photo credit: Robert
D. Rubie, New York City.
Equality and Freedom at Creation 71
The Radbruchs see the Petrarch estates-tree in relation to the early­
six enth-century tendency to identify simple virtue, even sanctity, with rus­
te
tics.56 In this sense, its message might resemble that of the Cicero judgment:
piety makes the peasants closer to God than the proud and worldly.
Hans-Joachim Raupp agrees with the Radbruchs in relating picture to
tex although he sees the paradoxical position of the peasants at the top of
t,
the tree as indicating the caprice of fortune, or perhaps the moral superiority
of the peasants. The idealizing of the peasants in religious controversial liter­
ature of the early sixteenth century may be reflected here, and this popular
imagery might even have indirectly inspired peasant rebels in 1525.57 In this
sense the tree represents not lineage but a moral statement.
The estates-tree illustration may have chronological as well as genealogical
import. The peasants and shepherds are oppressed in this life, and their drudg­
ery supports the luxury of the other estates (all of whom are richly dressed
and accompanied by symbols of wealth), but in the world to come, the weak
and the subjugated will lord it over the other estates.58 This interpretation en­
counters the same difficulty as the Radbruchs' theory of peasant piety: the
posture and activities of the rustics do not convey an image of holiness, for
neither napping nor bagpipes can be termed positive iconographic symbols.59
Nevertheless, the woodcut makes some statement about labor and ease,
whether as a point of divine history or as a warning to the privileged. Without
deviating completely from the text, the artist goes beyond Petrarch's caution
against excessive pride in noble birth to depict a reversal of fortune more last­
ing than the temporal ups and downs of family histories. A conventional
statement directed against noble pride in Petrarch is turned in a more unset­
tling, even subversive direction by the Petrarch Master when he figures peas­
ants both as the basis of society (another commonplace) and as obtaining an
eventual compensation for their ill-treatment and inequality.
Classical and Medieval Theories ofEssential Equaliry
The Adam and Eve couplet, Petrarch's discussion of true nobility, and the il­
lustration of the estates-tree accompanying the German translation of Pe­
trarch are elaborations on an essential equality underlying distinctions in the
secular order. These assertions were understood by a wide spectrum of the
population and would come to possess a proverbial character. Behind such
compact formulations, however, are generations of philosophical and theo­
logical debate about nature, natural law, and society. The moralizing didactic
and sermon literature that served as the proximate source for what might be
considered "popular" ideas of equality and difference had as their foundation
 The Origins ofInequality 72
a tradition of commentary on inequality within both the classical and Chris­
tian worlds.
Human society was thought to be appropriately divided into different
levels of wealth, privilege, and labor. According to Plato and Cicero, as well as
Saint Paul and Saint Augustine, the cooperation among unequal social orders
was required for the survival of society. This meant not only that inequality
was useful, but that to blur the hierarchical division of society in any way was
to undermine its moral as well as practical basis.60 Inequality was necessary
rather than merely excusable.
Slavery presented something of a problem since it could not immediately
be fit into a pattern of mutual cooperation. Slavery was prominent in Greco­
Roman discussions of social order, natural law, and inequality not only be­
cause it undergirded the classical economy but because slavery represented an
absolute inequality, less easily explicable than simple differences in wealth or
fortune. I would reiterate the distinction between equality in a literal, eco­
nomic sense (in which, for example, property would be equally divided, or
not exist at all), which was seldom advocated, and minimal equality of �ondi­
tion in which what requires justification is not that some people are rich and
others poor, or even that a few are rich and many are poor, but that some are
relegated to a subhuman condition. Although equality is obviously not the
same thing as freedom, the two are entwined because slavery is the most ob­
vious and least immediately explicable form of subordination, a form en­
forced moreover by law and coercion, and not to be explained away as the re­
sult of haphazard circumstance.61
One way to approach the problem of slavery was simply to repudiate
equality and to suppose that some are naturally fit for slavery while others are
naturally capable of profiting from freedom. The denial of fundamental hu­
man equality and the idea of natural slavery were enduringly presented in Ar­
istotle's Politics. 62 Certain people are slaves by reason of their lack of intelli­
gence or physical strength. It is better for them to be subordinated to those
who are their superiors, who are "upright." Aristotle does not deny that en­
slavement might result from conventional circumstances rather than nature,
from the practice of enslaving captives taken in war, for example (which as far
back as Heraclitus was an explanation for the origin of slavery).63
For Aristotle the superiority of Greeks to barbarians was demonstrable ev­
idence for the limits of human equality.64 The sense that slavery was natural is
similar to the sense that the state, the family, and the superiority of men to
women and animals are natural. These are all postulates of what Aristotle re­
garded as civilized (Greek) social order and are found closely joined in the
opening sections of the Politics.
Equality and Freedom at Creation 73
Greek and Roman Stoicism, however, regarded slavery as contrary to na­
ture, the result of human convention and a certain coarsening of human
character and institutions following an earlier golden age. For the Stoics, liv­
ing in a larger, more cosmopolitan world that included other civilized, even
Greek-speaking peoples, the barbarian/Greek distinction was no longer dom­
inant, nor was the enslavement of foreigners regarded as an axiom of natural
law. In Cicero and Seneca, human beings are by nature equal, and freedom is
defined as a condition more of mind than of body. Only the wise are truly
free, according to Cicero.65 Seneca stated that slavery does not affect the en­
tire being but only the lower part (the body), while the superior faculty (the
mind), remains free.66 This contrasts with Aristotle, for whom a feeble or po­
tentially corrupt spirit (along with a strong body) characterizes slaves.
The Stoic conception of an eternal law joining human institutions to uni­
versal harmony meant that slavery violated nature and the cosmic order. Slav­
ery was a salient aspect of the corruption of human life, which had declined
from a primordial period of happiness when human beings lived in peace
with the gods and coercion was unknown. Nevertheless, slavery was ulti­
mately not terribly important to the Stoics since it was essentially a matter of
body rather than spirit.67
In Roman law the contrast between nature and convention was described
in terms of natural law versus the law of nations. The jurists were less inter­
ested than the Stoics (and certainly less than Christian authors) in how slav­
ery had come about, although the theory of captivity in battle held a certain
prominence.68 Slavery was the classic example of an institution contradictory
to natural law but nevertheless widespread among the nations of the earth.
The jurist Ulpian was the author of two canonical formulations of human
equality and freedom according to the law of nature: that "with respect to
natural law, all men are equal," and that "by natural law all are born free."
These appear in Justinian's Digest among general statements about slavery
and manumission.69 It should be emphasized again that equality and freedom
are not the same thing, but they are related, for the most obvious example of
inequality is enslavement, the deprivation of freedom, of one set of people by
another. The conceptions of the Roman jurists would be taken over in the
Middle Ages, but with some changes.70
The distinction between natural law and the law of nations in connection
with slavery would find its way into Gratian's Decretum and Aquinas's discus­
sion of law, but for the early Christian period these types of law mattered less
than divine law in understanding how to think about a practice seemingly in
violation of Christian doctrine. The Stoic idea of a golden age could be an­
nexed to the doctrine of the Fall, with the result that the existence of equality
 The Origins ofInequality 74
at creation did not mean that equality extended in time beyond the catastro­
phe of Adam's disobedience. The next chapter will look at some of the expla..:
nations offered by the Church Fathers for the origins of slavery, especially
Noah's curse on his son Ham (Genesis 9:25). What is certainly dear is that
patristic writers were willing to acknowledge slavery as licit, if unfortunate,
within the order of things following from the sinful condition of humanity
after the Fall, whether or not this was reinforced by a specific imposition of
social distinction in biblical time. From its beginning, Christian thought ex­
hibited a tendency to posit what the Scholastics would call a "relative natural
law" that modified or diminished the rules that had obtained in paradise.71
Although at the Creation human beings were equal, through sin humanity
had become divided. The Fall, Cains murder of Abel, Ham's mockery of his
father, or some combination of events made coercion and subordination un­
fortunate necessities. Force in the form of state power and the maintenance
of social inequality was licit although not in every respect harmonious with
natural and divine law.72
It is not entirely surprising, therefore, that Christianity did not signifi­
cantly undermine the practices of ancient slavery. The venerable idea that a
more humane legislation resulted from the conversion of Constantine is con­
tradicted by the bland savagery of later Roman and Romanized Germanic
law.73 Nevertheless, Christian writers carefully described the discrepancy be­
tween slavery and God's present intention, not just the contradiction of slav­
ery by some earlier state of grace. God granted an immortal soul to all, slave
as well as free. Acceptance of the secular order, most obvious in Romans 13,
does not quite confer moral legitimacy on slavery. The writer known as Am­
brosiaster (fl. 366-84) states that God created all men free. While Ham,
Noah's accursed son, appears as the progenitor of slavery, he functions in Am­
brosiaster as a symbol of sinfulness and stupidity who incurs subordination
upon his posterity. But this condition affects the body only, not the soul, so
control over the body by the master must be just and temperate.74
In Ambrosiaster, as in Lactantius,75 slavery has no validity in God's eyes,
but aside from this personalization of divinity, their view is thoroughly com­
patible with the Stoics' mild laments about the falling away from the stan­
dards of a vanished egalitarian era.
How vividly original equality might be said to persist in the physical
world is a matter about which the Fathers differed in important ways. Ac­
cording to Ambrose, for example, it is sin that truly enslaves, so that the slave
can surpass the free man in virtue. In such a case it is the supposedly free man
who is truly enslaved. This resembles Seneca's thinking on the matter, except
that what underlies the common nature is Christ, in whom we are all one.
Equality and Freedom at Creation 75
For Ambrose, equality was not limited to the happy past but in some sense
continued in the present. 76
Augustine discussed original human equality in describing the limited
pu oses of the state in book 19 of The City of God. No longer was the Ro­
rp
man Empire to be understood in classical terms as established to further hu­
man virtue; rather, it existed for the negative but necessary task of controlling
by force the consequences of sin. Government was natural neither in the
Aristotelian sense of promoting the good nor in the Stoic and Ciceronian
sense of harmonizing with natural law. The state, like human inequality, was
the result of sin.
In an extremely influential passage, Augustine said that God created ra­
tional man not to rule over other rational men but to rule the earth's irra­
tional creatures (as God instructed Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:2-3).77
Slavery quite obviously violated the original plan of creation, but its biblical
origin (Genesis 9:21-27, Noah's curse upon Ham and Canaan) appears just
after God's statement of human dominion over animals. We have seen the
first passage from Genesis cited in medieval biblical commentaries to contrast
legitimate with tyrannical dominion, and will come across it again in connec­
tion with the injustice of serfdom.78
In the evolution of Augustine's thought, of course, confidence in the pre­
sent power of a harmonious natural law working for earthly good gave way
to a more pessimistic conception of the enduring consequences of sin. This
affected Augustine's teachings concerning grace, the nature of state authority,
and slavery, which now became an inevitable accompaniment to the social or­
der of fallen humanity. Domination of men by their fellows, the enduring
consequence of sin, was manifested by public and private coercion: by the
state and by slavery. Augustine regarded both as unfortunate necessities.79
In another passage that would be frequently repeated, Augustine more
specifically ascribed slavery to two forces: iniquity and adversity.80 Iniquity
here means the moral guilt of those who become enslaved. Its archetype is
Ham, who laughed at his father's nakedness and whose son Canaan would be
the first postdiluvian slave. We will look subsequently at the uses made of
Noah's curse in justifying slavery, but here it should be remembered that
Genesis 9 was read as establishing not only human domination over the earth
but also a more unfortunate order resulting from sinfulness-a differentia­
tion within humanity, the origin of slavery with Ham.
By adversity, Augustine meant a general condition of fallen humanity in
which misfortune rather than a specific cause leads to enslavement. 81 This re­
sembles Aristotelian resignation in instances of simple bad luck (such as cap­
ture in battle) that lead those not naturally fit for slavery into servile status.
 The Origins ofInequality 76
This did not mean that Augustine unswervingly acquiesced to unjust en­
slavement. In one of his later letters he condemned the buying and selling of
free men and children as slaves in North Africa. Additionally, in a letter to a
jurist, he attempted to find grounds to oppose the degradation into slavery of
someone born of a free mother and unfree father.82 Slavery was a social reality
but was not for that reason to be accepted in all circumstances as merely a
chance misfortune. For Augustine, original equality was obscured by the un­
predictability of this world, but more pointedly by sinfulness in two aspects: a
general disorder that makes harsh measures necessary, and weak character
and misconduct that is fittingly chastised by subordination. If a portion of
humanity was not created with an inferior character (contrary to what Aris­
totle said), nevertheless some people are appropriately restrained by slavery
even if their subjugation came about by accident of fortune.
The author who most clearly presents original equality as a present reality
is Gregory the Great. In his Moralia on Job, Gregory relied on Augustine for
the assertion that all men are equal and the unfortunate contrast between
God's command to rule the earth's animals and the fact of human subjuga­
tion.83 It is important to see how Gregory differs from Augustine, however,
with regard to the present implications of an original equality. Augustine was
concerned with the origins of state authority, while for Gregory this was of
less intrinsic interest. If Augustine did not share Ambrose's confidence in the
mission of the Roman Empire, he still had before him a classical idea of gov­
ernmental power, whereas for Gregory, deferential though he might be to the
imperial authorities in Constantinople, political ideas were outweighed by
personal, pastoral, and contemplative matters. The cultural autonomy of the
secular world was considerably reduced in the period between Augustine and
Gregory. Less attention needed to be devoted to problems of civil law and
custom and more to pastoral concerns. 84 On the other hand, Gregory did not
share Augustine's opinion that the existence of state power was directly re­
lated to sin as a divinely sanctioned punishment for disobedience, a view that
would be prominent in Isidore of Seville. The prince should rule justly and
mercifully, in accord with a fundamental, subsisting human equality, not sim­
ply dominate. 85
Augustine had ascribed slavery to an overarching sinfulness that affected
humanity in general as a result of the Fall. Although equality persisted in a cer­
tain providential sense, and would be fully restored when the Two Cities were
definitively separated, it was shadowed by an inevitable result of sin in histor­
ical time. Gregory diverged from Augustine in having a much firmer sense of
the immediate continuing equality of humanity. In the passage from Moralia
21, Gregory stated, Omnes namque homines natura aequales sumus: we are all
Equality and Freedom at Creation 77
equal by nature. This was not contradicted by his subsequent Augustinian for­
mulation that all are born equal by nature, omnes homines natura aequales ge­
nuit. For Gregory, a mysterious dispensation of God, along with individual
human sins, had brought about the "diversity'' of conditions and character be­
cause of which some must rule and others be ruled. For Augustine, it was a
universalized sin resulting from Adam that brought about subordination.
In the Regula pastoralis Gregory recalled his statement in the Moralia but
acknowledged that social inequality bore a relation to vice and virtue and that
humanity was not intended to live in equality. Here the domination of ani­
mals is linked to licit human rule by the necessity of controlling the bestial
part of human nature, but the rule so necessitated is that of prelates, not of
secular power. 86 This text would be used to buttress medieval assertions that
differences in rank and privilege are sanctioned by God and that absolute hu­
man equality is now impossible.87 However, as Robert Markus points out, for
Gregory, nature (by which all are equal) has not been as thoroughly deformed
by sin as it has for Augustine. An original human equality still underlies the
present order.88
Another locus classicus for human equality and its limitations comes in a
letter of Gregory's to the bishop of Syracuse, defending the authority of the
papacy while acknowledging that insofar as sin (culpa) does not obtain, all are
equal according to the rule of humility. 89 Gratian would cite this in his De­
cretum, and Peter the Chanter would slightly rework it into a frequently re­
peated formula: Ubi non delinquimus pares sumus. This statement contrasts
with what might be called the Isidorian interpretation that justified servitude
by reason of the necessity to repress sin. Ubi non delinquimus, quoted repeat­
edly throughout the Middle Ages, was an egalitarian statement of a still valid
underlying equality, obscured but not effaced by human failings. 90
The two themes from Gregory could be combined: that human beings
were given dominion over animals, not over one another, and that setting sin
aside, we are equal. Genesis 1:26 begins with God's statement «Let us make
man to our image and likeness," after which God confers dominion over all
creatures of earth, sea, and sky. In a commentary on these lines, Nicholas of
Tournai cites Gregory's Moralia regarding dominion over animals and joins
to it the formula of Gregory's Syracusan letter by way of Peter the Chanter:
ubi non delinquimus, pares sumus. 91
Gregory also had a higher estimation of the effects of the Incarnation on
subsequent liberty than did Augustine. In a letter of manumission addressed
to two famuli ecclesiae Romanae, he writes that Christ assumed human flesh
in order to release us from the servitude in which we were held captive. He
restored to us our original liberty and canceled the effects of the ius gentium
 The Origins ofInequality 78
that had disrupted our original freedom. Nature made the two manumitted
men free, while ius gentium enslaved them. Gregory cancels the effects of the
law of nations just as Christ broke a chain (of sin) to restore humanity to· its
pristine liberty.92
Restoration of freedom is joined to underlying human equality. To be
sure, this does not mean in and of itself the end of slavery as a human insti­
tution. Once more, the contrast between inner and outer liberty could be de­
ployed to excuse (render irrelevant) actual social status. Gregory did not ad­
vocate, nor was he interested in, the abolition of slavery. Yet the passage from
his letters quite clearly referred to human subjugation and not some
metaphorical servitude. Christ liberated us from sin and has thus restored our
original nature, a thesis that the Augustine of the City ofGod would not quite
so literally have agreed with.
In later centuries, the image of Christ as the destroyer of bondage would
serve to answer arguments that posited a biblical or historical basis for servi­
tude. Even if Adam or Ham was the unwitting author of subjugation, Christ
had canceled that debt, restoring our original liberty. The delivery of the chil­
dren of Israel from "Pharaoh's thralldom" betokens Christ's passion that re­
deems us from the devil, according to Aelfric. In this we are alike before God,
the slave as well as the king.93 The passage from Gregory's letter to the Roman
church would appear explicitly in Gratian (C.12 q.2 c.68) but also in a pro­
logue to peasant demands in fifteenth-century Catalonia. It would inspire re­
marks by Adam of Eynsham in England and by the author of the Reformatio
Sigismundi, and it stands behind legal texts and sermon literature in Ger­
many, Bohemia, and Hungary.94
Gregory is thus to be distinguished from Augustine, but also from his
near contemporary Isidore of Seville, with whom he is often closely associated
in descriptions of Christian theories of inequality.95 Isidore was more confi­
dent than Gregory that servitude was necessary to restrain the will of those
likely to behave sinfully. Isidore acknowledged that baptism cleansed the orig­
inal sin of Adam but nevertheless believed that the domination of potential
malefactors by their masters accorded with the will of God.96 This interpre­
tation would be frequently reproduced in legal and didactic works of the
ninth through twelfth centuries.97 Isidore thus explained slavery more by in­
iquity (in Augustine's terms) than unfortunate circumstance. This fits in with
Isidore's emphasis on the necessity for the coercive power of the state and its
institutions, which follows immediately his justification of servitude.98
There is a tendency to introduce medieval discussions of social division
with a quick run through the thought of the Church Fathers, especially Au­
gustine, Gregory, and Isidore. I have followed that practice but would like to
Equality and Freedom at Creation 79
go beyond it somewhat by underlining differences among the Fathers that
would become increasingly important as their formulations concerning slav­
ery became canonical. It is often said that all three explain slavery by refer­
ence to human sinfulness. This is true as far as it goes, but what is of conse­
quence is that they differ with regard to the precise relationship between sin
and subordination. All might agree that the Fall had ended absolute human
freedom and equality and ushered in the domination of sinfulness, but they
differed on how to apportion responsibility within a generally sinful world or­
der. For Isidore it was most clearly the actual or potential conduct of those
enslaved that represented human sinfulness. Slavery existed to punish or pre­
vent the wickedness or weakness of those who are subjugated. Sin in Augus­
tine was more general. While some were rightfully punished for their iniquity
(Ham), others were unfairly enslaved. Sin thus brings about an unequal dis­
tribution of fortune's favors, and there is usually no appropriate gradation of
temporal suffering to fit varying degrees of sinfulness. In Gregory, although
slavery accorded with God's hidden purposes, sin did not destroy human lib­
erty or equality. Diversity and inequality came into the world through sin,
and it was necessary for some to rule others, but Gregory was less confident
than Augustine and Isidore that coercion was necessary or that slaves had a
greater propensity to sin.
Slavery and Serfdom
Patristic texts would be influential in an age in which the distinction between
free and unfree was no longer as dear as it had been in the late Roman Em­
pire. Beginning with the Carolingian period it becomes difficult to say
whether the dependent tenants on the great estates were slaves or serfs, al­
though probably their condition was further from that of Roman slaves than
the reigning school of historians of medieval slavery believes.99 Whether or
not the actual institutions of society resembled the social structures of late an­
tiquity, the writers of the ninth and tenth centuries used the term servus to
mean slave.
These authors invoked the Augustinian/Gregorian distinction between
human dominion over the earth, which accorded with God's direct instruc­
tions, and subordination of one class of men by another, which might not
be in harmony with God's intentions. For Alcuin, God created man in His
image, and gave him dominion over irrational animals. Citing Augustine's
commentary on Genesis 9, he noted that some fell into slavery because of in­
iquity, others through misfortune. Finally, Alcuin added the Roman-law de­
rivation of servus from servare, a term referring to war captives who were "pre-
 The Origins ofInequality 80
served" rather than being killed. 100 Hrabanus Maurus repeated Alcuin's text
but stated at the outset that servitude was just. Hrabanus approaches an Aris­
totelian theory of slavery when he says that some excel in reason while others
are deficient. Hrabanus was willing to admit that this did not always prove.
true in practice, but counseled patience and the expectation of a heavenly re­
ward, so that, for him as for Augustine, slavery is explicable by a combination
of moral failing and misfortune.101 In the context of an argument against Jews
holding Christian mancipia, Agobard of Lyons offered a slightly sharper dis­
tinction between God's creation of human beings and the reality of slavery.
He repeated Gregory's description of an original equality that was still valid
despite sin and God's "most just and most hidden judgment" by which some
were degraded to servitude. Agobard distinguished exterior liberty from an in­
terior liberty by which people who were essentially (internally) equal might
licitly hold one another in bondage-Christian might hold Christian-but
which did not legitimate the holding of Christians by spiritual inferiors,
namely Jews. As with Gregory, so for Agobard, slavery was sanctioned by
God, despite our original condition of freedom and equality, because of what
human nature now is.102 Haimo of Auxerre states flatly that slavery is due not
to natural law but to sin and guilt. As in Isidore, however, the sin is firmly
that of the slave (or his ancestors). Slaves are not naturally subordinate but
rather, as with Canaan, son of Ham, placed in servitude because of sin.103
While no Carolingian writer can be said to have denounced slavery con­
sistently, there were those who upheld some original condition of equality
that had not been destroyed by sin or misfortune. Jonas of Orleans speaks of
the relationship of the powerful to those he refers to as pauperes as well as
servi. 104 In the most general sense, he argues, the wealthy should not think
that those placed below them are by nature inferior. They are equal in the
sight of God and by nature even if (by the usual "hidden dispensation'') there
are various gradations of liberty and fortune. Jonas ends rather than begins
this discussion with the Augustinian contrast between rule over the irrational
animal world and subordination of humans. Instead of considering this dis­
tinction to be more or less abrogated, Jonas holds it to be still valid even if in
the present world divers conditions of men exist.
Rather of Verona followed the order of Hrabanus's discussion when ad­
dressing those who are lords (patroni) but differed in his conclusion, rejecting
the notion that normally those who rule are more fit to do so by nature. Hu­
man beings were given dominion over fish, birds, and beasts but not over
men, who are equal in nature. Often those who are unworthy dominate those
who are better than they: "Hence our ancestors preferred to call those who
had dominion over the others fathers of their country, dictators, and consuls
Equality and Freedom at Creation 81
rather than kings, thinking it would be hateful if men were said to be ruled,
like cattle, by anyone."105 On the other hand, when addressing servi, Rather
not only counsels patience but also quotes Isidore of Seville on the restraint of
wicked license by servitude. Subjugation is providential, an aspect of the nec­
essary fear of authority without which sin would have unrestrained power.106
For Smaragdus, human equality was not ended by events after the Cre­
ation, and domination is not readily excusable. Smaragdus urges Christians
to free those enslaved to them.107 Servitude is the result of sin, but the sin ap­
pears to be more the fact of domination than some general human condition.
This view is sharper in Atto ofVercelli's commentary on Paul's epistle to
the Ephesians. Servi are admonished to be humble, but lords must not forget
that servi are their equals under divine law and within the Church. The name
servus is abhorrent, because servitude is the result not of nature but of iniq­
uity. Moreover, this is not the Augustinian/Isidorian iniquity of those who
were enslaved but rather the injustice and lust for power of those doing the
subjugating.108
Complaints over the sale of slaves and other unfree men cited the distinc­
tion between humans and animals in defense of a basic Christian equality. At
the Synod of Coblenz (922), the sale of Christians as slaves was deemed a
crime similar to homicide. A letter written by Emperor Conrad II in the pe­
riod 1027-29 denounced the sale of mancipia as if they were beasts, which vi­
olates canon law. Similar language appears in legislation of the Synod of West­
minster in no2 and in the Chronicae Bohemorum, by Cosmas of Prague.109
Stephen Langton referred to the distinction in Gregory's Moralia between hu­
man dominion over animals, bestowed in Genesis 9:2, and the subjugation of
men that was not conferred by God on other men and that violates human
equality.110
The same sort of language appears occasionally in ordinances purporting
to limit the buying and selling of slaves in the high and late Middle Ages.
There can no longer be any doubt that slavery existed on a massive scale in
the medieval Mediterranean.111 Serfdom did not so much replace slavery as
supplement it. In Catalonia, Saracens, Tartars, Circassians, and Sardinians
were either bought or captured.112 There was a reasonably clear distinction be­
tween slaves and unfree or semifree peasants, to the extent that the former
were foreign peoples bought and sold as servants or laborers, not members of
the native population hereditarily settled as tenants. The servitude of the
Catalan peasantry might present a difficult moral problem (discussed below,
Chapter n), but slavery did not. Elsewhere one does find occasional implicit
criticism of slavery. Much has been made of two laws passed by the Great
Council of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in 1416 and 1466 that invoke God's creation
 The Origi.ns ofInequality 82
of man in His image and protest against treating human beings as if they were
animals. These laws regulated rather than abolished traffic in slaves, however,
and were at any rate ineffective.113 Although slaves could be defined and rec­
ognized as different from serfs, nevertheless some blurring of these boundaries
occurred. Discussions of natural law among the theologians and canonists still
used Roman terminology of slavery but applied it to various classes of the un­
free and semifree. Burchard of Worms, Ivo of Chartres, and Gratian taught
the legitimacy of marriages between free and slave on the basis of the funda­
mental equality of human beings before God.114 The decretal "Dignum est»
of Adrian IV recognized as legitimate the marriages of servi undertaken with­
out seigneurial permission.115 The canonists in the twelfth century, beginning
with Huguccio, defined servile condition as a perpetual obligation that could
exist apart from personal status. Thus servi, like those of intermediate or am­
biguous status in Roman law (adscripticii, originarii, liberti), could be consid­
ered free as persons but burdened by an irrevocable and perpetual servitude
related to land more than status. The use of the term servi in canon and me­
dieval Roman law therefore applied to tenants of rather different condition
from that of ancient Roman slaves and so was less artificial than might at first
appear. The border between freedom and unfreedom was important to canon
law for such problems as defining who was ineligible to enter holy orders or
defining the status of children of mixed marriages. Romanists and canonists
assumed that the majority of those affected by the laws on unfree persons
were rustics, but were less interested than theologians or even customary
lawyers in explaining the origins of serfdom or the rural economy.116
With less concern than the jurists for technical definitions of status and
more attention to problems posed by the ethics of slavery properly speaking,
Aquinas considered slavery in trying to reconcile Aristotelian teachings re­
garding differences in human nature and the naturalness of government with
Augustinian/Gregorian assertions of the fundamental injustice of domination
and slavery's violation of human equality. He distinguished two sorts of do­
minion, one that deviated from original human equality (slavery), and an­
other that was completely natural (the rule of free men by other free men­
the state). Slavery itself (like private property) did not coincide absolutely
with natural law, but might be an addition to it inasmuch as the ius gentium
arises from human natural reason. Slavery, like property, answers certain ne­
cessities and bestows certain conveniences on human life.117
Commenting on the Politics of Aristotle, Aquinas acknowledged that the
peasants of his era were not slaves and so not completely subsumed under the
Aristotelian doctrine of natural slavery. Nevertheless, Aquinas agreed with Ar­
istotle that some were fit for servile labor by their lack of natural reason and
Equality and Freedom at Creation 83
the strength of their bodies.118 In his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aquinas accepted Aristotle's definition of the slave as a "living tool" (instru­
mentum animatum). 119 Agricultural labor was lower than any other work, and
its practitioners should be ruled by their intellectual superiors. There was
therefore a certain resemblance to classical slavery in Aquinas's thoughts con­
cerning the peasants of his time, but he never discussed their situation with
any great interest or detail.
The work of Thomas's followers, such as Giles of Rome and Ptolemy of
Lucca, shows more clearly how Aristotelian natural inferiority might cover
more than actual slavery. They explicitly embraced Aristotelianism to the ex­
tent that they agreed with the Philosopher that some men lack reason by na­
ture and cannot rule themselves and so are appropriately given servile tasks.
Nicholas of Oresme argued in this manner commenting on Aristotle's Poli­
tics.120 All the neo-Aristotelians refer to "servile" work, but Nicholas includes
under this rubric agricultural, artisanal, and commercial employment.
When one turns from the highest levels of university culture to sermons
and other didactic literature, it becomes dear that serfdom rather than slavery
provoked the question of the violation of natural equality. Classical and pa­
tristic teachings concerning the origin and nature of slavery could be applied
to the more familiar forms of medieval dependence. Thus, for example, di­
dactic writers such as Hugo von Trimberg and Konrad von Ammenhausen,
satirists such as Heinrich Wittenwiler, and even Chaucer explained eigenshaft
or "thralldom" by reference to Noah's curse.121 The Roman-law explanation
for slavery as punishment for treason was adopted for theories of the origins
of serfdom in Hungary, while deriving slavery from captivity in battle was
used in Catalonia.122
Serfdom was, of course, less clear-cut than slavery as a violation of a fun­
damental natural order. Without invoking Aristotle on natural difference
among humans, it could be argued that serfdom was no more a unique form
of bondage than anything else in a society built around mutual obligations,
a society, moreover, in which everyone shared in the privation of absolute
freedom resulting from sin.123 Indeed serfdom as a status was sufficiently im­
-precise that much of the discourse of lamentation as well as counsels to pa­
tience were addressed to the peasantry in general, irrespective of their specific
condition.
What was seen as violating natural equality was not, therefore, a dramatic
difference in social condition but arbitrary and unjust lordship. This aspect
of serfdom was vividly resented by those it afflicted and lay behind demands
for the abolition of serfdom, such as those made by the peasants assembled at
Blackheath to hear John Ball. Even in lands such as the Tyrol, where the agri-
 The Origins ofInequality 84
cultural population was technically free, revolt centered around "servitude"
because what were perceived as oppressive and arbitrary conditions of lord-
ship placed tenants in a de facto servile condition.124
The nature of serfdom was encapsulated in Bracton's saying that the serf
does not know today what his lord might order him to do tomorrow. In fact,
as R.W. Southern observes, this is unlikely to have been true and, if anything,
describes the unstable life of the knight more than the rather predictable rou­
tine of the agriculturalist.125 Nevertheless, it was the potential for a lord to or­
der what he wished, including degrading or violent treatment, that defined a
subjugation that included serfs but could also affect those not legally deprived
of free status.
The arbitrary nature of lordship over medieval peasants was a major
grievance motivating rebellions, a grievance that conceptually joined two ar­
guments: one concerning natural equality, the other natural liberty. The an­
tithesis of equality was the lack of freedom or subjugation to the arbitrary will
of another, whence much of the polemical force of denunciations of lords
treating their serfs or other dependents as "animals" and the significance of
symbolic demonstrations of subjugation by yoke or mutilation.
The argument of equality was formulated as the assertion of a fundamen­
tal liberty that sin and subsequent events had not obliterated. This could rely
on the simple physical fact of human resemblance. In Wace's often-cited ac­
count of the rebellion of Norman peasants at the end of the tenth century,
the peasants protest that they are as much men as their oppressors, formed in
the same fashion and equally capable of experiencing pain.126 It could appear
as an argument that all people, nobles as well as peasants, were obligated to
labor (thus if manual work was in some sense the result of sin, it affected
everyone). Finally, the argument of basic liberty could deny that human sin
explained or justified subjugation. According to the History of the Bishops of
Auxerre, the peasant rebels known as the "White Capes" (Capuciati), active
in the diocese of Auxerre and elsewhere in the middle of France between n82
and n84, demanded that they be restored to that primordial liberty enjoyed
by our original parents, Adam and Eve. Specifically, the Capuciati demanded
freedom from seigneurial taxes and recognition of their status as free men.
The author of this section of the History, after describing the formation of
sworn associations, denounces their diabolical inspiration. He adds that in
justifying libertas by reason of common descent from our primordial parents,
they seemed unaware that servitude was the price of sin.127 Later denuncia­
tions of servitude and peasant revolts against serfdom would turn ideologi­
cally on the permanence of a measure of human dignity and liberty, obscured
by sin but restored by Christ's Incarnation.
Equality and Freedom at Creation 8 5
Original equality meant original freedom. To the near unanimity con­
cerning equality we can add the general agreement that in the beginning all
were free. The names of serfs freed by the city of Bologna in 1256 were entered
into a book called the Paradisus. Two preambles to this record declared that
God created men to be perfectly free but the Fall had brought about servitude.
Bologna, which had always struggled for liberty (semper pro libertate pugnavit),
would now lift the yoke of servile condition imposed by the ius gentium and
restore that original freedom in honor of Christ, who had broken the bonds
128
of servitude by His sacrifice. Marc Bloch observed that a model manumis­
sion document issued by the chancery of Alphonse of Poitiers also claims to
129
restore the natural liberty that the ius gentium had taken away. Bloch lists
citations of this opposition of natural liberty and the law of nations from the
canonists Paucapalea and Stephen of Tournai, the Roman lawyers Bulgarus
and the author of Brachylogus, the customary lawyer Beaumanoir, the encyclo­
130
pedist Vincent of Beauvais, and the theolo�i�n Thoma� �quinas.
These scholars explained why the ongmal condmon of freedom had
been vitiated, but there remained a problem of the degree to which original
liberty could legitimately be weakened. On a theoretical level the difference
revolved around absolute versus relative natural law. To the extent that nat­
ural and divine law can be modified, it was possible to excuse servitude, but
if such ordinances were fixed and not capable of being weakened, then servi­
tude (of Christians at least) became difficult to justify. As Peter Bierbrauer
points out, this distinction lies at the heart of Wydif's teachings conce�ni�g
the "Lex Christi" as opposed to the administration of the Church. By limit­
ing the ability of the Church to rule by reason of sin or to interfere with a
now-immutable natural law, Wyclif questioned how the original liberty of
human beings could be licitly obscured.131 Radical thinkers such as Wyclif,
however, were not the only ones who asserted the unchanging nature of nat­
ural and divine law, and this question would be a source of anxious contro­
132
versy among jurists throughout the Middle Ages.
The following two chapters will examine explanations for the origin of
servitude that identified a particular moment in the biblical or historical past
when the free were separated from the unfree. The necessity for such expla­
nations reflects the limited utility of the simplest reason for servitude, Aris­
totelian "natural slavery," a limitation due to that concept's incompatibility
with certain fundamental Christian doctrines. 133 It also demonstrates the
problem posed by Gregory the Great's statement that Christ had freed all
from servitude. Biblical and national myths of servitude answered the ques­
tion posed by the Adam and Eve couplet by acknowledging common ances­
try but identifying a licit division subsequent to Creation.
 The Curse ofNoah 87

Chapter- 4 walking backwards toward him with a doth. Upon awakening, Noah
"learned what his younger son had done to him" and uttered the curse: that
Ham's son Canaan should henceforth be a servant of his brethren.
The Bible is replete with interpretive conundrums, and this episode pro­
The Curse of Noah vided several difficulties that prompted ingenious efforts to address them.
What exactly had Ham done to deserve such a punishment, and why was the
penalty levied on Canaan rather than on his father, the author of the crime,
whatever it was?
The Talmud and Midrash provide a number of speculations concerning
the nature of the transgression and its punishment. The relevant passages in
these texts are difficult and subtle as regards their original meaning and long­
term significance.2 It has been something of a misleading commonplace to
suppose that the Jewish commentaries began an unbrok�n tradition of deni­
The starting point for medieval speculation concerning the origin of the
grating black Africans by attributing slavery and black skin color to the cu:se
world's different peoples was the biblical Flood and its aftermath. Genesis 9
of Noah. The supposed talmudic origins of this version of the curse and its
describes the first settlement, made by Noah and his sons after the flood­
consequences is asserted in such standard works as the latest edition of The
waters had receded, while Genesis IO provides the genealogy of Noah's sons,
Oxford Companion to the Hebrew Bible. In a more sinister fashion this claim of
rather confusingly linked to various territories.
talmudic origin has also become part of a campaign to "prove" that Jews bear a
The biblical account of the repopulation of the earth would be used to
particular burden of guilt for the enslavement of Africans.3 What David Aaron
explain human difference-not only the origins of different nations but the
calls the "myth about the myth" (i.e., the putative Jewish origins of black sub­
reasons for inequality, particularly why some human beings were held in
ordination) makes it more urgent to see how a complex edifice has been built
bondage. The curse uttered by Noah upon the line of Canaan resolved the
on the shaky foundations of a few poorly translated passages collected by un­
problem of the origin of despised or feared peoples, those whose outcast sta­
trained scholars from a voluminous and variegated textual tradition.4
tus seemed to require explanation. Noah's curse appears in several medieval
Here I am not concerned directly with Ham in relation to Africans but
contexts. 1 Among the many uses found for Ham's fateful laughter at his fa­
rather with the history of thought about him before he was cast as the prog­
ther's nakedness was to situate a biblical origin for unfree rustics. The institu­
enitor of European serfs. Although medieval Christian writers assumed the
tion of serfdom was thought to have arisen from Ham's sin and Noah's curse.
justice of Noah's curse and were not especially concerned about the H�m/
No treatment of medieval theories of servitude can entirely divorce itself _
Canaan conundrum, early rabbinic commentators labored over this quest10n.
from the other uses made of the puzzling story of Noah's drunkenness. Not
According to a passage in the Babylonian Talmud, Ham was punished be­
only were medieval serfs said to be descended from Ham, but at various
cause he sodomized his father while he was inebriated, or because he castrated
times slaves, Africans, Saracens, and Mongols were fit into the same ge­
him (or both).5 Elsewhere in the same tractate it is said that three creatures
nealogical paradigm.
were punished for violating God's penitential order to abstain from sexual in­
The ninth chapter of Genesis opens with God's blessing on Noah and his
··tercourse during the voyage: Ham, the dog, and the raven.6 Why was the
children along with the covenant not to send any future flood. Instructing
punishment meted out to Canaan and not Ham? Either because Canaan was
them to be fruitful, God promised Noah's progeny that they would dominate
the earth and its animal inhabitants (reiterating the blessing conveyed to the himself the guilty party, or because this was an appropriate means of punish­
ing his father. Perhaps Canaan rather than Ham had actually been the first to
earth's first human inhabitants, Genesis 1:28). After the ark reached land,
see Noah's drunkenness and had told Ham, so that they both merited pun­
Noah planted a vineyard and at some unspecified time thereafter became
ishment; or perhaps Ham castrated Noah, rendering Noah unable to "per­
drunk His son Ham saw his stupefied father naked and told his brothers
form in the dark" (i.e., perform sexual intercourse) and sire a fourth son, so
Shem and Japheth, who hastened to cover Noah without looking at him by
Noah cursed Ham's fourth son with dark skin.7
 The Origins ofInequali"ty 88
But it was the nature of the punishment that was to be of most conse­
quence. According to Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b, Ham was punished by being
''smitten in his skin" (which may or may not have meant that he turned
black). The Jerusalem Talmud, at one point, says that Ham came out of the
ark "charcoal colored."8 Nowhere in the Talmud, however, is there anything
typifying blackness as a hereditary taint, nor was there yet any connection
drawn between black skin and Canaan or servitude.
Within the Jewish tradition, consideration of Ham as the originator of
blacks amounted to little more than occasional speculation. The role of Ham
as the unwitting originator of slavery is more significant, because Genesis 9:25
says that Canaan would be "a servant of servants unto his brethren." 9 Never­
theless, before the eleventh century no Jewish commentaries ascribed any link
between Ham as progenitor of slavery and black skin. There is a faint corre­
spondence in the works of Jewish travelers and geographers of the High Mid­
dle Ages. In the twelfth century, Benjamin of Tudela wrote of one of the peo-
ples of Cush who are naked, eat wild herbs in the fashion of animals, and are
easily taken captive by the inhabitants of Aswan and sold into slavery in
Egypt: "these are the black slaves, the sons of Ham." Although the slaves are
black, so too, apparently, are those who capture them, for they form another
part of the people of Cush.10
How influential Jewish commentaries might have been on Christian un­
derstanding of Noah's curse is difficult to determine, partly because of prob­
lems in dating rabbinic and Christian commentaries. Certain aspects of tal­
mudic speculation certainly were absorbed by early Christianity. Justin Mar­
tyr states in his Dialogue with Trypho that the curse of Noah foretold the
Hebrew conquest of the Canaanites and also the Roman conquest of Pales­
tine, while Origen said that Canaan had been the first to see Noah's dis­
grace.11 Considerably later, a thirteenth-century gloss to Peter of Riga's Au­
rora borrowed from Jewish notions of Ham's sexual undiscipline, although
here Ham merely summoned a demon to enable him to lie with his wife in
the ark without leaving footprints in the ashes Noah had strewn about to pre­
vent such an occurrence.12 On the whole, however, there is little evidence for
Christian knowledge of (let alone borrowing from) the Talmud before the
twelfth century, and even after this point, its influence on Christian specula­
tion was small.13
In medieval Christian exegesis, Ham's particular sin was laughter. Not
only did he behold his father's nakedness and not do anything about it, he
was thought to have mocked Noah, and it was for this that he deserved to be
cursed.14
Like Judaism, early Christianity only very tentatively joined race to the
The Curse ofNoah 89
exegesis of the curse.15 It was in the Islamic world that slavery and blackness
were first closely joined, for unlike the Jews or Christians of the period before
the High Middle Ages, the Muslim populations of North Africa and the Near
East actually did own and traffic in black slaves.16 Although nothing is said
in the Koran about Ham at all (let alone about any connections between him
and Africa, slavery, or blackness), beginning with Ibn Qutayba in the ninth
century a current of Islamic opinion held that Africans were descendants of
Ham, whom God had turned black.17 Shortly thereafter, Tabari, in his mas­
sive Ta'rikh, made explicit the crucial connections among the three elements:
Ham, blackness, and slavery. He attributed to Noah a prayer that Ham be
turned black and that his progeny serve the offspring of Shem and Japheth.18
A similar theory was offered by the eleventh-century traveler Ibrahim hen
Wasif Sah.19 By the time of Ibn Khaldun (died 1406), it was widely thought
that blacks were Ham's descendants cursed as slaves by Noah.20 Despite the
dissents of lbn Khaldun and others, this commonplace would frequently be
adduced into modern times to excuse trading in African slaves.21
For medieval writers, the curse of Noah showed why there were nations of
people whose apparent strangeness might otherwise be inexplicable.22 The
curse was extremely useful taken in conjunction with the genealogies that fol­
lowed. Isidore of Seville combined the lore of classical ethnography with bib­
lical suggestions to produce a taxonomy of the world's peoples. Although he
discussed neither the curse of Noah nor slavery in this context, Isidore attrib­
uted 31 peoples of the world to the line of Ham, including Ethiopians and
Africans, among whom were numbered cannibals (Anthropophagi) and other
fantastic savages.23 According to an Irish account, horse-headed people, two­
headed people, "maritime" leprechauns, and "the merry blue-beaked folk''
were all of the line of Ham, as were Saracens according to Pseudo-Aethicus
Ister, and Mongols according to the older versions of John de Mandeville's
Travels. 24
Genesis 9-10 was not the only text in the Bible that could be used to ex­
plain difference. Cain was commonly thought to be the progenitor of the
monstrous races, the ancestor of Grendel in Beowulfi for example. Another
elaborate tradition invoked Hagar, the servant of Sarah who bore Ishmael by
Abraham (Genesis 16). According to Josephus, Hagar fled to the desert twice,
the second time with Ishmael at Sarah's insistence after the birth of Isaac.
Abraham gave the unprepossessing land of Arabia to Ishmael by way of com­
pensation. That the Arabs sprang from Ishmael was a Jewish commonplace,
repeated by Jerome and given new currency by Bede writing in the wake of
the dramatic expansion of Islam.25
A certain amount of crossover is evident in the typology of despised peo-

· Cecco d'Ascoli.34 But it is Ham, not Cain, who is the direct cause of
6. Captured fugitive serfs with horns. Early-fourteenth-century illustration to
Codex 6.r, "De fugitivis servis." Ti.ibingen, Universitatsbibliothek MS Mc 295, fol.
153r. Reprinted by permission ofthe Universitatsbibliothek Ti.ibingen.
The Curse ofNoah 91
ples and their supposed origins. Thus, the eleventh-century Vienna Genesis
made Cain rather than Ham the progenitor of blacks.26 Ham was, in any
event, commonly thought to be descended from Cain, so that to some degree
he reinforced an earlier cause of subjugation.27
Cain served as the originator of a number of outcast peoples, from giants
to the Plinian races. 28 The mysterious ((mark of Cain" was interpreted as some
species of physical deformity (even horns); hence the mythical misshapen
peoples of the Indies or of Africa were thought to be his offspring.
The malformed Cain could also be regarded as the first peasant. We have
already seen Adam in this role, especially in the discourse concerning equal­
ity. Cain functioned as one of several possible points of separation, the begin­
ning of inequality. Cain was suggested in part because of the common repre­
sentation of peasants as physically deformed. A peculiar example of the appli­
cation of the mark of Cain to rustics occurs in an early fourteenth-century
Roman-law manuscript now in the Ttibingen University Library, which
shows captured runaway slaves (or serfs) being led by cords before a judge.
They have horns on their heads, in keeping with a conventional iconography
of the mark of Cain (Fig. 6).29 A manuscript at St. John's College, Cambridge
University, combines several negative iconographic themes in portraying
Cain with kinky hair, horns, and a peasant's scythe (Fig. 7).30
Cain was thought to be the ur-peasant because of other inferences drawn
from Genesis. Cain offered to God the ((fruit of the ground," which was re­
jected (Genesis 4:3), while Abel's offering from his flocks was accepted. Pru­
dentius (died ca. 405) began his poem on the origin of sin-Hamartigenia,
which is in fact a denunciation of the heretic Marcion-with an evocation of
Cain, a tiller of the soil (fossor) who slew his brother Abel, a virtuous shep­
herd. Death entered the world through Cain, a rusticus. 31 Cain was a plow­
man, a German medieval sermon states, and Abel a herdsman. 32 Cain is asso­
ciated with ((the devil's plow" in Hugo von Trimberg's Der Renner. 33
Cain was the first peasant, and his wicked character was sometimes said
to have been transmitted to his rustic progeny, for example, in Petrarch's De
remediis and a fifteenth-century satiric denunciation of rustics attributed to
bondage. Although he would at first be thought of as the ancestor of slaves
rather than agriculturalists as such, the nature of serfdom made Ham the fa­
ther of the lower orders of medieval rural society. In the numerous vernacular
adaptations of Jacobo de Cessolis's allegorical treatise on the game of chess,
Cain is presented as a negative rustic model or image but not as progenitor
of all peasants. In Konrad von Ammenhausen's Schachzabelbuch (completed
in 1337), Cain is the first peasant, but Konrad goes beyond Cessolis in mak-

7. Cain shown with horns and kinky hair. From an English Psalter, ca.
1270-80. St. John's College, Cambridge, MS K.26, fol. 6v. Reprinted by permission
of the Master and Fellows of St. John's College, Cambridge.
The Curse ofNoah 93
ing Noah's curse the origin of rustic servitude. 35 In John Gower's dream-vi­
sion of the English rebellion of 1381, the rebels are described as the accursed
progeny of Ham, turned into beasts, as Circe transformed the servants of
Ulysses. 36
After the murder of Abel, God promised that the earth would not yield
its produce bountifully for Cain (Genesis 4:12), who could therefore be re­
garded as an emblem of fruitless agricultural labor.37
Western medieval writers thus showed a tendency to mix theories of ori­
gins, but not just at random. A rough correspondence was established be­
tween cursed biblical figures and the taxonomy of outcasts. Hagar and Ish­
mael were primarily considered the ancestors of Muslims. Cain functioned as
the originator of the monstrous races and also of peasants, whether free or
unfree. Ham had two medieval roles: as the father of a number of peoples,
including black Africans, and as the ancestor of European serfs. If Cain was
an archetype of the peasant regardless of status, Ham was the progenitor of
the unfree of whatever race. In the Islamic Middle Ages and in modern Eu­
rope and America, the symbolic linkages were fused. Ham was the ancestor
of black slaves, as commonly argued from the sixteenth to the nineteenth
century.
For the Christian Middle Ages, however, Ham was not exclusively associ­
ated with Africa, Africans were not thought of as exclusively black, and blacks
were not thought of primarily as slaves. Although they could be symbols of
frightening savagery (as in The Song ofRoland), black people since antiquity
had been thought of more favorably as exotic, for example the Ethiopians in
the Isis cult and in Origen's commentaries. Later, black Africans were de­
picted as the purveyors of the golden treasure mined south of the Sahara. 38 In
1324 the spectacular pilgrimage to Mecca of Mansa Musa, king of Mali, daz­
zled not only the Islamic but the European Christian world with a magnifi­
cent display of gold and slaves. The Catalan Atlas of 1381, designed by
Cresques in Majorca, shows Mansa Musa holding a gold nugget. He is de­
scribed as the wealthiest and most noble lord in Africa because of the gold
that abounds in his territory. 39
The portrayal of a luxuriously bedecked black Caspar in paintings of the
Three Kings was especially popular in the late fifteenth century, but the iden­
tification of Caspar as king of India and Ethiopia is found earlier in Otto of
Freising and has been traced to sixth-century Armenia. 40 Blacks sometimes
appeared as grotesques in illustrations, and characteristics such as kinky hair
could appear as part of an iconography of contempt, but whether exotic or de­
spicable, blacks in European eyes before the advent of the African slave trade
were not usually considered the victims of biblically sanctioned servitude. 41
 The Origins ofInequality 94
Ham was cited to explain a more familiar phenomenon, the subordina­
tion of European peasants. Ham represented servitude and proved useful for
explaining inequality among the Christian population. Cain could n�t ge­
nealogically be distinguished from Abel as an ancestor because of the inter­
vention of the Flood; thus he served more as a negative type in sermons and
other didactic literature than as originator of the peasantry. Because of the
Flood and the genealogy presented in Genesis 10, Ham via Canaan could be
regarded as the literal father of the unfree. What is more, the curse of No�
could excuse the violation of divine and natural law that serfdom otherwise
appeared to commit.
The invidious use of Noah's malediction in the modern era to explain
slavery is well known. Among the many theories devised to explain the ori­
gins of the New World peoples were those connecting them to Ham and thus
casting them as cursed or at least lowly races meriting servitude. Speculation
about Ham as the progenitor of the American indigenous peoples was espe ­
cially popular in sixteenth-century Spain and France, countries that had pre­
42
viously evinced little interest in Ham as the originator of serfdom.
The discovery of the New World also led to a vast increase in the slave
trade, and because Africans rather than Indians were enslaved and brought to
the new colonies, the curse of Noah was applied most frequently to Africans
and became a ubiquitous excuse for their captivity. In the mid-fifteenth cen­
tury, well before Columbus, Gomes Eannes de Azurara, under the patronage
of Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, described a group of West African
captives sent to the prince, distinguishing the Muslim nobles among them
("cavaleiros") from the subordinate "black Moors" who were slaves because of
Noah's curse.43 In the later part of the sixteenth century, the English explorer
George Best invoked Ham's sexual undiscipline as the origin of the curse and
its perpetuation through Cush to the Africans.44 In all of these works, how­
ever, the connections between the curse, slavery, and race remained tenuous,
and the curse itself was presented gingerly and offhandedly as the allegation
of unidentified persons other than the author.
The seventeenth century saw more explicit assertions of the curse as
joined with race and enslavement. The Spanish Creole savants Buenaventura
de Salinas y Cordova and Leon Pinelo, writing near 1650, justified both the
conquest and the slave trade by the curse of Noah, which, they argued, af­
fected Indians and black Africans alike. Attempting to defend enforced sub­
ordination and at the same time extol the favorable conditions of the New
World, these proponents of the colonies used the curse to explain why the in­
digenous and involuntary African inhabitants were inferior while the land it­
self was not; to disassociate the territory from its subjugated population.
45
The Curse ofNoah 95
At about the same time, in England the fragments of an ambivalent tra­
dition were put together to form a biblical justification for the enslavement of
Africans, while in Germany Johann Ludwig Hannemann devoted an entire
book to the question of the origin of the Ethiopians' skin color, adducing
Noah's curse but also naturalistic explanations such as climate and alchemical
notions of human generation. 46
Before the eighteenth century, therefore, Ham as the progenitor of
African slaves had become a commonplace. A peculiar example is Jacobus
Capitein, a missionary preacher ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church in
1742 (the first black Protestant minister anywhere), who defended slavery as a
vehicle for the salvation of Africans to make up for the sin of Ham, progenitor
of slaves. 47 The Dutch settlers in southern Africa also made use of the curse
against Ham to justify harsh rule over the Khoikhoi during the early nine­
teenth century, but did not elaborate this into pseudoscientific or evangelistic
arguments in the manner of intellectuals of the southern United States.48
Apologists for slavery in the English colonies of the New World made use
of the association of Ham with Africa and slavery. In New England, Samuel
Sewall in 1700 questioned whether the curse remained valid even if it were
true that blacks were descended from Ham. Although this would seem to
show that the curse against Ham was already a common defense of the
African slave trade, most apologists in the eighteenth-century colonies pre­
ferred to argue on the more practical basis of economic utility or the fright­
ening specter of what would happen if slavery were ended, especially in the
Caribbean sugar colonies. 49
In the course of the demands for the abolition of slavery in the southern
United States, demands which became heated after 1830, the curse against
Ham was sometimes invoked by the proslavery side. As it did in medieval ar­
guments, the curse answered assertions of human equality by denying the
perpetuation of original likeness beyond the primal divide after the Flood.50
American apologists for slavery were largely unaware of (or uninterested
in) medieval or patristic speculation. Their attempts to reconcile slavery with
Christianity purport to be original disquisitions on biblical texts, often com­
bining fanciful etymologies with pseudoscientific or neo-Aristotelian asser­
tions of the natural inferiority of Africans (their fitness for labor, their frivo­
lity, their need for guidance) or with peculiarly American ideas of evangelism
and Manifest Destiny.
Ethnological studies purporting to demonstrate that blacks formed a sep­
arate species were more popular than medieval or Renaissance speculation
and lent themselves to theories of the refoundation of humanity after the
Flood. 51 The curse against Ham was also tailored to the prevalent idea of
 The Origins ofInequality 96 The Curse ofNoah 97
was more �s�ful in jus:ifying subjugation of Christian inhabitants of Europe
America's mission as the late st revelation in the unfo lding of God's intentions,
than explammg the existence of foreign peoples . The Vienna Gene sis, as we
so that not only was H am's role as servant most clearly fulfilled in the con-:­
have see?, made �ain the forefather of blacks, but Ham's guilt was cited by
temporary South, but Ham was depicted as a willing subordinate, recogniz­
that text s author (m what was by this time standard fashion) to explain Eu­
ing his place in a divine plan in which his labor served the mighty task of
ropean s erfdom, a more imme�iate problem.57 In those parts of Europe
clearing the American wilderness, an enterprise conceived and directed by the _
sons of Japheth that might eventually result in the lifting of the curse.
52 ':here serfdom persisted or grew m strength after the Middle Age s, Ham con­
tinue� to _deno�e the serf, and by extension the peasant, boor, lowly person, a
Scientific the ory and assertions of American destiny placed Noah's curse
meanmg 1t retams today in Lithuanian and a number of northern Slavic lan­
against H am in a conceptual setting for which me dieval or patristic prece­
guages: In� Chekhov story a wretched prisoner exiled in Siberia protests with
dents were irrelevant (even had they been familiar). What in nineteenth-cen­
pathetic pnde that he is a deacon's son, "not a mere peasant of Ham's condi-
tury Europe had become dubious antiquarianism would be fashioned in
53 t'10n." 58 In mod�rn Po1·1sh, "Cham" remams a common term of opprobrium,
America as religious, moral, and even scientific proof texts. .
denotmg a boonsh, loutish character.59
The one important instance of a justification for American slavery that at
Medieval �o�mentaries on the curse of Noah were based on patristic the­
least indire ctly referred to the Middle Ages was the so-called "Corner-Stone .
ones of the ongm of slavery, apart from anything to do with Africa or Asia.
Speech" given in Savannah by the Confederate vice pre sident Alexander
Such speculation �bounded since doctrine s of Christian liberty and equality
Stephens on March 21, 1861, the eve of the American Civil War. Past gove rn­
had to be re�onc�led with the �e alitie s of social subordination. Slavery re­
ments had been based on serfdom and other methods of oppressing members
sulted from sm, sm of that persistent kind that still infected the world after
of the same race. Subordination of Europeans by their brethren, Stephens ar­
Christ's Incarna tion and Sacrifice.
gued, violated both natural law and Providence. The enslavement of blacks,
on the other hand, was licit, for either by nature or by the curse upon Canaan �a�nt Ba�il and Saint Ambrose in the late fourth ce ntury were the first
Christian writers to fit Noah's curse to servitude, justifying slavery by refer­
they were suited for slavery.54 In the course of defending racial subordination,
ence to �he u�fort��ate �ecessity to �ubordinate the intellectually we ak and
the "cornerstone" of the Confederate foundation, Stephens rhetorically exem­ _
th� u nd1sc1plmed. While no one 1s by nature a sl ave (Basil), and while
plifies the perceived moral difference between subjugating those who ap­
Samt Paul does call us from servitude into liberty (Ambrose), nevertheless,
peared alien ("othe r") and subjugating those who were not manifestly mar­
the fath�rs agreed, c�ting Noah's curse upon Canaan as a pertinent exa mple,
ginal or different.
a chrome la ck of wisdom and of discipline made subjugation necessary.61
Understa ndably, historians of the United States have tended to share the
Ambrose regarded Ham's punishment for his laughter as proof of an unbal­
nineteenth-century Protestant lack of interest in the e arlier uses of Noah's
anced nature th at merit d ensl ave ment.62 Finally, in a tre a tise on fasting,
curse . But in the absence of such investigation it has been too e asily assumed �
Ambrose adduced the misdeeds of Noah himself, whose primordial drunk­
that there was simply an unbroken tradition joining together H am, Africans,
enness might be said to have led to servitude : "there would be no servitude
and slavery, traceable ultimately to a supposed Jewish rabbinic consensus.
toda y if the re had been no drunkenness," a l ocution that would be ab­
Not only did no such consensus exist, but the curse of Noah was malleable
sorbed into medieval canon and civil law.63 Ham thus appea rs at the outset
and for centurie s could apply to various problems of difference, including
of the C�ristian t�adition as an emblem of culpable lack of discipline more
those that had nothing to do with Africa or skin color. The Mongols and Tar­
than deliberate wickedne ss. In the exegesis of Colossians (4:1) by the so­
tars, who forced themselves on the attention of Europe in the thirteenth cen­
called Ambrosiaste r, servitude is the re sult of H am's foolish behavior his
tury, were thought to be membe rs of the enclosed nations of Gog and Magog
"�tupidity." 64 John Chrysostom was the first to emphasize the delibe;ate,
descended from "Cham." Such speculation was encouraged by the similarity
smful nature of H am's offense and to identify slavery as punishment for a
between the Mongol title "khan' and the biblical name "Cham," a putative
p�st trans gre ssion, applied in the pre sent to those with a propensity to sin.
connection emphasized e specially by John de Mandeville.55 Saracens and can­
Like �mbrose, Chrysostom stated that servitude entered the world through
nibals were also occasionally related to Noah's curse.56
Noahs drunkenness, but he added tha t it also entered through Ham's sin­
In the Middle Ages it was commonly assumed, and often explicitly as­
fulness in calling attention to his father's condition.65 Ham's willful deprav-
serte d, that rustics, and serfs in particular, were descended from Ham. H am
 The Origins ofInequality 98
ity (rather than some natural defect) corrupted the nobility of his charac­
ter.66 Chrysostom explains the punishment meted out to Canaan and his
descendants by their sinful character. Servitude is a consequence and reflec­
tion of sin.67 Just as the subordination of women to men results from Eve's
transgression, according to Chrysostom, so slavery results from Ham's
laughter. Both punishments stem from the necessity of controlling those in­
capable of self-discipline.68
Saint Augustine perfected the Christian understanding of the conse­
quences of the Fall and original sin, placing Noah's curse in the context of the
nature and origins of civil order and repression.69 In book r9 of The City of
God, Augustine described slavery as a particular aspect of the general rule of
sublapsarian sin and the need for countervailing force. Elsewhere (as dis­
cussed in the previous chapter) he argued that servitude could arise from two
kinds of sin: active human iniquity (as in Ham's case) or a more circumstan­
tial adversity (as with Joseph and his brothers).70 Once again, servitude was
the outcome of sin, of this world's wickedness, but part of a necessary social
order. Augustine's use of the curse against Ham would influence the formula­
tions of Alcuin and Hrabanus Maurus in the Carolingian era.71
A less specific location for the beginning of domination is given in Gre­
gory's Moralia on Job, in which sin remains important in rationalizing slav­
ery but no single event stands as its cause. Sin, brought into the world by the
Fall and affecting the generality of humankind, served to explain force and
inequality. There is no quasi-historical moment in which slavery figured as
the punishment for a specific offense.72 Ham also does not appear in Isidore
of Seville's influential explanation for slavery, namely that it is necessary to
restrain the desire to commit wrong on the part of those unsuited to free­
dom. The propensity to commit evil deeds is the result of the Fall, a more
fundamental event than Ham's misdeed, which split humanity genealogi­
cally.73 The Isidorian formulation would be repeated by Rather of Verona,
Burchard of Worms, and Ivo of Chartres and paraphrased in the History of
the Bishops ofAuxerre in reference to peasant rebels (the Capuciati) of the late
twelfth century.74
The curse of Noah, therefore, was useful as a justification for slavery, but
a less pointed, more generalized theory such as that found in Isidore of
Seville, referring to the Fall, could also serve the same purpose. Ham's offense
became most important in the Middle Ages when it was mobilized to excuse
s�rfdom, a condition of partial subordination that affected those who were,
unlike slaves, recognized in some sense as part of the Christian and local
communities. In such a setting, alternative genealogies might be preferable to
the universal law of sublapsarian domination.
The Curse ofNoah 99
It is not easy to determine at what point the curse was applied to serfs
rather than slaves, largely because of the problem already alluded to of situat­
ing a particular moment in which slavery suddenly gave way to serfdom. This
difficulty is exacerbated by the use of servus by medieval authors to cover
both forms of servitude. Thus a group of proverbs and riddling dialogues
dating from the ninth to eleventh centuries answer the question of whence
came servi by making Ham responsible, but who exactly is meant by servi de­
pends on our interpretation of the status of unfree rural inhabitants of the
post-Carolingian world.75
A certain ambiguity concerning the meaning of servi is present also in
Honorius Augustodunensis. Describing the world's Second Age, Honorius
linked knights (milites) with Japheth, freemen (liberi) with Shem, and servi
with Ham. While the pairing of liberi and servi indicates that the latter were
unfree, Honorius in all his works was firmly cognizant of the circumstances
of his own society. Writing in about noo (probably in England), he was most
likely thinking of the lower level of agricultural tenants rather than literal
slaves.76
Noah's curse against Ham became more the preserve of didactic than
high theological discourse after the twelfth century, although Alexander of
Hales, justifying servitude by the need to teach humility, notes its introduc­
tion through Ham.77 Saint Antoninus (+r439), the Dominican archbishop of
Florence, said that servitude was sanctioned by divine law, not merely by the
law of nations, as evidenced by Noah's curse against Ham.78 The curse also
circulated among jurists as at least a stylized explanation for the origin of
servitude. Thus in the course of elucidating the English common-law action
of naifty, the early-fourteenth-century Mirror ofJustices, acknowledging that
serfdom violates natural law, traced it either to Noah and Canaan or to the
subjugation of the Philistines by Israel.79 A manumission document of r3or
from Berne liberated a serf "from the curse of Noah." Similar language ap­
pears in an n23 charter issued by Saint-Maur-des Fosses.80
Generally, however, by the late Middle Ages Ham was a largely literary
rather than juridical figure, a symbol of foolishness, inappropriate mockery,
and lack of sexual control.81 He was also identified as the progenitor of servile
rustics rather than of slaves narrowly defined. The early-fourteenth-century
English poem Cursor mundi adopted the model offered by Honorius Augus­
todunensis:
Knyht, and thral and fre man
of these thre britheren bigan;
Of Sem fre mon, of Iapheth kniht,
thral of Cam, waryed wihte. 82
 The Origins ofInequality 100
The early-fifteenth-centur y dialo gue Dives and Pauper made Ham's mo ckery
and disrespect for his father the ori gin o f bondage and thraldo m.83 Al ong
with Gower 's invo cation of Ham in the Vox clamantis, the best-known En­
glish example is that i n the "Parson's Tale" where, in the course of pointing
out that co nquerors make thralls of tho se bo rn of royal blood, Chaucer says
that the institution of thralldom was unknown before Noah made his "so n"
Canaan subject to his brethren. In Chaucer this comes in connectio n with a
discussion o f equality in God's eyes ("AB wel may the cherl be saved as the
lord"), and no genealogy of servitude is posited. Canaan is the first slave but
not the lineal ancestor of all who are unfree.84 In the Miller 's Tale the curse
against Ham is given an anticlerical turn when the mocking and lascivious
clerk Nicho las makes John the Carpenter play the role of a ludicrous Noah.
According to Lee Patterson, the Miller, as a member of the peasantry, answers
the co urtly myth of peasant degradation by manipulating the image of Ham
as astrologer and seeker after forbidden knowledge to apply it to the arrogant
clerk. Here again Ham is more a type than the literal father of servility.85
Ham's general responsibility for the invention of servitude amounted to
so mething of a cliche in the Middle Ages, but its use was selective. The curse
o f Noah was espe cially brought forward in works by German authors, no ­
tably didactic poems, such as Hugo von Trimberg's Der Renner (ca. 1300) and
Konrad vo n Ammenhausen's reworking of Jacobus de Cessolis's chess alle­
gory, completed around 1337.86 The curse was also employed in the chronicle
by Jansen Enikel in the late thirteenth century, in a satire by Pamphilius Gen­
genbach in the si xteenth, and in Feli x Hemmerli's antipeasant diatribe o f the
mid-fifteenth century.87
On the other hand, Noah, Ham, and Canaan do not figure in discussio ns
o f serfdom in Spain, Italy, or (with one exception that I know of) France.
88
Within the German tradition o f didactic poetry and antipeasant satire, the
curse of Noah was more than a merely co nventional symbol. It answered the
question o f how inequality, mo re especially servitude, could exist within a
community that included neither captives, strangers, nor manifest aliens. The
curse is o ne answer to the conventional o bservation that all humans were
o ri gi nally (and therefore essentially) equal. By locating a moment in the past
such as the subo rdination o f Canaan to his brethren, medieval writers legiti­
mated serfdo m by means of the biblical origins of nations.
To who m were such arguments addressed? In satires of peasants o r in de­
scriptions o f estates the curse reassured to wnsmen and nobles that the rural
inhabitants were degraded justly. They were immediate and genealo gical suc­
cesso rs of Ham and Canaan. In his o ne-sided dialogue between a rustic and a
knight, Feli x Hemmerli has the rustic argue that Noah's curse could not af-
The Curse ofNoah IOI
feet _indefinite futu:e _ gen_erations. The noble denies this, demonstrating the
p�rs:stence o� the d1st�nct1on and reasserting the permanent effect of Canaan's
m1srortune without directly r efuting his interlo cutor.89
More e_xtensi�ely, Hugo von Trimberg's long poem Der Renner recounts a
confro ntat1�n with a gr oup of i nebriated village lo uts, one of who m asks
Hugo why you lords are so much better off than us poo r peasants," and fur­
ther whether some people are owned while others are free? The reply to the
latter query, a simple "yes," angers the rustic, who counters with the familiar
argument that all are born of one original mother.90 It is against this alread
stand�rd assertion o� original equality that Hugo recounts the history ofNoab.
and his _sons, rendering the curse thus: "Accursed be Canaan and all his race.
!hey will be th� serfs [eigen knehte] of my two sons."91 One of his befuddled
mterlocutors misunderstands and exclaims "Only no w I understand that we
must always be an apostate [vernoyert] people," thinking that the name Noah
(Noye) is etymologically related to vernoyert and that Noah was the one who
was cursed.92 After correc�ing this error, Hugo assures the villagers that not
only serfs b_ut also Jews, witches, and heathens are offspring of Ham. Never­
theless, �nltke t�ese outcasts, the unfree peasants, while cursed on earth, will
find thetr ent1! _mto h�aven easier than that of their oppressors, for the free­
do m of the pnvtleged is no t of long duration.93
While.it is �nli�ely that such a co nversatio n took place in quite this fash­
.
ion (espec1,ally m v�ew of the suspicious alacrity with which the peasants ac­
�ept Hugo s reasonm�): Hugo vo� �rimberg's poem affords at least an imag­
m�� respo nse t� familiar denunc1at1ons of servitude based on the co mmon
ongm of humamty in Adam and Eve.
. In hi� m?ck �pie D�r �ing (written ca. 1400), the Swiss po et Heinrich
�Itten�der i�agmes a similar conversation but in an exclusively peasant set­
tmg, a discussion amo ng the men of the benighted village of Lappenhausen,
who are as�embl�d for a war council.94 When someone po ints out that ac­
.
cor�mg to tmpenal law a militar y expedition must be led by a prince, an es­
pecially 11nruly p�asa�t asks whence princes derive their ri ght to rule, for are
we not all Adams children? A relatively wise village elder respo nds that al­
thou?h all come from Adam and Eve, some are more worthy and have been
a�p�i�ted by the people to rule, just as o ne of Noah's sons was punished for
h_is ndicule by beco ming a bondsman and the others were honored for their
virtue �nd remained free men: "Therefore we are not equal. One is poor, the
other nch: one � peasant, the o ther nobl.e."95 Once again, the curse of Noah
annuls pnmord1al equality. The villagers in Der Ring ultimately decide that
_ .
they constitute their own empire and so can make war, but the poe t offers this
folly as further proof of their inferiority and hence of the validity of the curse.
 The Origins ofInequality 102
By the time of Wittenwiler's poem the connection between contemporary
human inequality and scriptural genealogy was venerable and well estab­
lished. The late-fifteenth-century Book ofSt. Albans invoked the Bible's an­
swer to the assertion of equality at Creation in a discussion of both Cain and
Ham as the progenitors of rustics: a "bonde man or a churle" will say we all
come from Adam, but one might just as well assert that Lucifer and his fol­
lowers all came from heaven (and were therefore somehow worthy).96
A current of resistance to theories attributing the origins of servitude to
Noah's curse did spring up fairly early on, however. Basing his critique on Au­
gustine's City of God and Gregory's Moralia on Job, Jonas of Orleans in the
ninth century denounced the powerful who forget that their subordinates are
their equals by nature and that they share the same God. Noah and his sons
received dominion over the earth's animal inhabitants, not over other men.97
Here the opening of Genesis 9 implicitly counters the uses made of verse 25
("Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren''). In
the mid-tenth century, Atto of Vercelli, although counseling servi to be hum­
ble, specifically rejects attributing their status to Ham, who was, after all, the
ancestor of kings. Masters and servants are equal by nature, distinguished
only by mere names. Servitude comes from worldly iniquity rather than di­
vine precept. The good servus is the friend of God, and the wicked master is
the servant of die devil.98
A similar reassertion of equality and refutation of the genealogy of servi­
tude appeared in a thirteenth-century legal collection, the Sachsenspiegel Here
the fundamental texts by which an indelible human equality is affirmed are
taken from Gregory the Great. The author of the Sachsenspiegel Eike von
Repgow, asserted that human beings were created equal after God's own im­
age, and were all saved equally by Christ's death.99 Human equality was there­
fore not erased by either Adam's Fall or Noah's curse. Speaking in the first per­
son, the jurist states that he cannot accept that one man can licitly belong to
another. This is preceded by four refutations of attempts to legitimate servi­
tude by biblical authority, specifically by the cases of Cain and Abel; Ham,
Shem and Japheth; Ishmael; and Jacob and Esau. All of Cain's descendants,
Eike von Repgow points out, perished in the Flood. And the Bible says noth­
ing about any curse or serfdom pertaining to either Ishmael or Esau, even if
they were looked upon unfavorably by God. The curse of Noah is irrelevant,
according to Eike (here making some crucial alterations to his immediate
source, Petrus Comestor), for the Bible does not say Ham was subordinated,
and at any rate since his descendants settled in Africa, while Shem remained
in Asia, and Japheth came to Europe, the offspring of one do not serve the
descendants of the other. 100 Thus what would later appeal to apologists for
The Curse ofNoah 103
slavery, namely Ham's migration to Africa, refuted serfdom in the thirteenth
century, when the problematic of subordination involved Europeans alone
and when Africa appeared exotic and remote.101
Wydif contemptuously rejected any effort to trace oppressive lordship to
punishment for Cain's or Ham's sin. In his tract "De servitute civili et do­
minio seculari," written in 1378, he ridicules the notion that Cain was the
progenitor of servile orders, for all his descendants perished in the deluge (and
Abel is not reported as having any offspring). Some progeny of Shem and
Japheth have been unfree, while conversely (as Atto ofVercelli had noted) the
line of Ham includes rulers (specifically, according to Wyclif, the
Pharaohs).102 Less upset about the existence of serfdom than Eike von Rep­
gow, however, Wydif went on to repeat the Pauline assurance that physical
servitude does not affect the liberty of the spirit.103
Luther, in his commentary on Genesis, has Ham taking over Asia, the
largest share of the world, and ruling from Babylon. Canaan, his accursed
son, occupied the land later given to the people of Israel, the land in which
paradise was located. Luther asserted this in order to show that the righteous
may be afflicted while the wicked are, for a time, allowed to prosper. The
curse has been "deferred but not removed, in order that the ungodly might
fill their measure and feel more smug."104 Nothing is said here about serfdom,
and Ham is situated in Asia rather than Africa, but Luther makes use of the
paradox of curse and rulership as found in Wydif. For Eike von Repgow,
Wydif, and Luther, Ham and his offspring were independent of the favored
brothers, so the curse could not mean a literal enslavement nor justify later
literal enslavement.
Against such arguments, it may seem surprising that the curse of Noah
proved so hardy, outliving the Middle Ages to find new vigor in the American
South of the nineteenth century. In part, it endured because it served handily
as a sweeping, biblical counter to the sweeping, biblical egalitarian argument
of common descent from Adam. It does not have what might be considered
an effective legal or constitutional force (as it is rather sweeping and not spe­
cific to a particular polity). The curse is found casually and only infrequently
in the works of jurists. Its appeal was strongest among didactic writers for
whom it answered the best-known peasant argument against exploitative
lordship.
The following chapter looks at another refutation of equality, more effec­
tive than Noah's curse in the eyes of jurists and historians, but applicable only
to certain individual nations: the attribution of serfdom to a secular form of
 The Origins ofInequality 104

the curse, an event in relatively recent (i.e., nonbiblical) history

liberty and power o n those who would subsequently form the
that c��ferred
nobility �nd
ent of teSti ng.
Chapter' 5
condemned to hereditary servitude those who failed the mom
to wh�t was
The event or test was always of a military nature and was linked
regarded as the formative period of the nation. It annexed the ?
i ea of a sin�e, National Myths and the
neat origi n for the deprivation of liberty
to the deeply held idea by wh_ic�
military capability or the defense of religio� gave rise to s� �
b equen� privi ­ Origins of Serfdom
timid and i nsuffi-
leges. Failure to defend oneself or the true fai th placed the
ciently pious in hereditary servitude.

Bravery, Freedom, and Inequality

The curse of Noah might have served to exculpate servitude from the charge
of violating divine law and proved useful for explaining the origins of outcast
peoples in a general way, but it was too sweeping to be easily applied to spe­
cific subordinate groups. O ne could assert that peasants descended from
Ham or Canaan, but this did not address the particular causes of debasement
within a given nation or explain why some members of a single polity were
unfree. 1
As medieval kingdoms developed powerful identities, myths of origin
proliferated, stories that glorified the epoch of fou ndation . Such accou nts
could also manipulate the past to explain why some members of a nation en­
joyed privileges while others were deprived of freedom. Myths of origin ex­
alted a national community while defining its social boundaries. Such quasi­
historical accounts of national formation were more specific than the u niver­
sal biblical origins of peoples.
Proclaiming the grandeur of a people, these stories raised and answered
questions about inclusion and exclusion : they explained why, within a popu­
lace sharing the same la nguage and other apparent marks of identity, there
were free and u nfree, aristocrats and serfs. I n certain medieval realms an in­
vented genealogy served better than biblical precedent to devise an origin for
serfdom, for the problem was not the abstract one of how subjugation came
into the world, but specifically the reasons for division within France, Catalo­
nia, or a nother nation. It was relatively easy to explai n o n the basis of Roman
law or biblical precedent why Saracens, Africans, or even captive subjugated
foreign Christians should be unfree, but unlike slavery, serfdom generally af­
fected those who at least appeared to be of similar origin to their masters.
 The Origins ofInequality 106 National Myths, Origins ofSeifdom 107
Moreover, the very act of extolling a nation as favored by God prompted the
question of why some members of that glorious community were neverthe­ Myths ofLegitimation
The Middle Ages had a notorious predilection for historical fabrications. Un­
less subjugated. If Catalans, Hungarians, or Franks had descended from _he­
roes, why were they not equal, or at the very least all free? The work of bmld­
til recently historians were inclined to dismiss them as amusing examples of
ing a corporate identity had to address these questions, and did so most fre­ credulity, ahistoricity, or talent at forgery. The medieval fondness for fantasy
quently by creating myths of exclusion to justify division. 2
and invention used to be contrasted to the Renaissance's supposed penchant
One strategy in such mythologizing was to type the original conquere_d
for demythologizing and unmasking historical forgeries. The reality of tem­
population and their descendants as servile by emph¥izing right of conquest
poral distance and cultural difference replaced Gothic anachronistic manipu­
or by arbitrarily creating an ethnic difference. Such explanations were pro­
lation of the past: Lorenzo Valla at work demonstrating that the Donation of
mulgated in ninth- and tenth-century Saxony, gained at least slight currency
Constantine was forged.
in England, enjoyed considerable sway in medieval (and for that matter mod­ It is now evident that the sixteenth century, its philological advances
_
ern) Ireland, and accompanied the Catalan conquest of parts of Greece m the
notwithstanding, yielded to no other period in its fondness for ingenious, cir­
fourteenth century. 3
cular, and spectacularly erroneous historical theorizing. 7 Historians of our
Theories of this sort worked where a clear linguistic difference existed or
own day are interested in the creation of useful pasts, viewed as products not
where a conquest had taken place relatively recently. They were less effecti:7e
of naivete but of the appeal and malleability of the so-called "imagined com­
in countries without radical internal language differences, or where such dif­
munity," an artifice of national sentiment. 8 Another somewhat over-used
ferences did not mirror distinctions of status.4 The most interesting approach
term, "the invention of tradition," takes its name from an influential collec­
to exclusionary myth-building, from our point of view, sought a moment in
tion of articles demonstrating that modern and contemporary states devised
the legendary past to serve as the point of original differentiati?n amo�g �he
plausible rituals and iconographies to legitimate monarchy, nationalism, or
particular nation's social strata, much as the moment of Noahs maled1ct1�n
colonial rule. 9 If putative Trojan origins of superior persons or populations
functioned for universal history. The chosen moment, however, would be sit­
were no longer likely to be swallowed, then credible "ancient traditions" such
uated in relatively recent historical rather than biblical time. Moreover, it
as Scottish clan tartans or the English coronation rite could be created nearly
would be founded on a believable event particular to that nation.
ex nihilo, demonstrating that recent centuries too permitted and even en-
With the exception of England, one tends to find either mythical origins
couraged historical fantasies.
of servitude or biblical origins but not both in any given nation. In Germany,
Artificial traditions and invented histories usually amount to somethmg
as has been seen, Noah's curse enjoyed considerable popularity. In Catalonia
more than erudite musings. Above all, they are fantasies of legitimation, at­
and Hungary, where national mythologies of servitude were strongest, the
tempting to read back into the authoritative past an assertion of privilege and
curse was unremarked if not literally unknown. France created the form that _
domination or (as with such minority nationalities within modern nation­
national legends of the origin of serfdom would take, although Catalonia and
states as the Welsh) of cultural uniqueness. They arise to prove specific im­
Hungary gave them more elaborate life, for in these countries serfdom flour­
ages of collective identity: who constitutes a people or kingdom, where they
ished during the late Middle Ages rather than waning as it did in France. All
came from, and what their imputed character may be.
three countries, however, preferred Charlemagne to Noah as the author of
The decline of historiographic positivism has turned attention to the pro­
privilege and subjugation.
cess of historical invention and given it the status of a narrative not to be eas­
In England one finds the curse associated with the peasantry in litera­
ily separated from "reliable" history. As the boundaries between literature �d
ture,5 but in the actual discussion of serfdom in the fourteenth century, or in
history have become permeable, it is easier to view the latter as a rhe�oncal
justifications of later revolutionary or reform movements (in the seventeenth
strategy, a discourse of contingency and manipulation, rather than a science.
and nineteenth centuries, for example), the Norman Conquest was held far
A respect for what is at stake in contested versions of history has pro­
more responsible than biblical events for oppression (the "Norman Yoke" the­
duced important studies of how historical legends were formed and used. Su­
ory) or for the subsequent wicked concealment of liberty (by appeals to
san Reynolds has shown the significance of medieval myths of the origins of
Domesday Book and the royal demesne). 6
 The Origins ofInequaliry 108
peoples.10 Miquel Coll i Alentorn and Thomas Bisson have described legends
concerning the foundation of Catalonia and their uses.11 Peter Linehan has
not only collected medieval Spanish historiographic forgeries and pieties but
shown how they were perpetuated into contemporary times.12 The uses of
dynastic saints and the identification of kingdom with conversion in east cen­
tral Europe has been studied by Gabor Klaniczay.13 The legends underlying
the identity of the French nation have been elaborated by Colette Beaune,
while Gabrielle Spiegel has depicted the struggles between royal and noble
history writing and the role of genre and language in political controversy.14
The authors of these impressive works differ as to how annoying or how
useful they find the accretion of unreliable tradition, rather as different view­
ers react differently to exuberant architectural styles such as the flamboyant
Gothic or Sicilian Baroque. For Linehan, there is-fakery and there is truth.
The former is to be stripped away to reveal the austere bare wood of reliable
fact. According to this view historical fictions may be amusing, and what
prompted them is worth exploration, but they interfere with an accurate vi­
sion of medieval reality. For Spiegel, on the other hand, historical manipula­
tion is the fact. There are no innocent or objective readings of the past to be
restored.
From a vast body of historical invention, as well as the varied recent stud­
ies of it, I wish to extract a small group of ideas relating to the subjugation of
peasants. Their subordination cannot be completely separated from what me­
dieval writers were most concerned with: praising the nobility and dem­
onstrating the supposed moral and historical basis for their privileges. Texts
describing the establishment of a nation, kingdom, or people justified the
polity by means of antiquity, genealogy, or some set of foundational acts.
Classical antecedents (Aeneas's grandson Brutus in England, Hercules in
Spain) provided illustrious origins by reason of high birth, learning (taking
the polity back beyond the barbarians), and connection with the sources of
literary and philosophical heroism. Biblical searches for ancestors were en­
couraged by the genealogies of nations in the Book of Genesis. Biblical and
classical figures could be blended, as in Spain, where both Noah's grandson
Tubal (Genesis 10:2) and Hercules supposedly figured in the settlement
of Iberia.15 The English chronicler Robert Mannyng "proved" that Brutus,
founder of England, was directly descended from Noah.16
The prevailing myths therefore justified occupation of the land and ex­
tolled its current inhabitants. They also tended to legitimate the privileges of
the nobles. For this task events with some recognizable historical specificity
were more useful than biblical or classical antecedents. In Catalonia, where
the foundational era was identified with Charlemagne, the French literary fig-
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom 109
ure of Ogier le Danois was transformed into "Otger Catalo," who, with his
nine noble companions, fought the Moors south of the Pyrenees before the ar­
rival of Charlemagne. Otger Catalo gave his name to the newly liberated
land, and the progeny of his comrades became the high nobility of Catalo­
nia; hence Catalonia was presented as essentially a nobles' creation. This chal­
lenged a comital myth ascribing the foundation of Catalonia to the histori­
cally genuine Guifre "the Hairy." 17 In France, the nobility rejoined royal his­
toriography with "truer" accounts of French history not only by proving their
ancestors' independence of the monarch but by subsidizing vernacular prose
chronicles.18
Aristocracy, genealogy, and fanciful history have certain natural affinities
and are found in many medieval historical narratives. More unusual is the
corollary explanation for the privation of liberty, why some members of the
collectivity did not share what was won at the crucial moment of origin. At a
particular historical moment a genealogy of privilege and servitude was es­
tablished by a test of bravery and martial skill. Military success and courage
were crucial to winning hereditarily transmissible high status, while timidity
or desertion justified the imposition of a heritable loss of freedom. A trial of
courage and valor had to be situated at the real or mythical establishment of
the nation whose political birth included its hierarchical differentiation.
Legitimation was built into any narrative that exalted a people. Celebrat­
ing the accomplishments of a population required explaining who really was
included in this supposedly superior nation. For an abstract theory of social
order, mutual service and the tripartite division might illustrate why lordship
and servitude were providential. Within a nation whose virtue and vigor
(strenuitas) were surpassing, however, servitude could not so easily be justi­
fied. Aristocracy needed to stem from a violent assertion of right, not develop
as a functional category within an organic metaphor. This violent assertion
was legitimate and virtuous but expressed aggression rather than reasonable­
ness.19 The aristocracy proved through their character that they possessed in­
delible moral strength, so that this class alone represented the virtue of the
nation.
Bravery and freedom were conjoined in something more violent than the
uplifting generalities common to modern national pieties such as the Amer­
ican national anthem, which describes the United States as the "land of the
free and the home of the brave," or "Rule Britannia," in which naval su­
premacy is joined to liberty and national character. In a society with a multi­
plicity of special, chartered liberties, privileges, and exemptions, hierarchical
difference was not submerged in equality of citizenship or patriotic solidar­
ity (except within local communities such as a particular valley). Liberty re-
 The Origins ofInequality no
sulted from an act of bravery, not just constitutionally (through a declaration
or war of independence) but as a moral reward for valor hereditarily trans­
missible into posterity. The political existence of Catalonia did not have to
be traced to a formal act of the fictional Otger Catal6 and his noble compan­
ions. Their successful wars against the Saracens began decades before Charle­
magne could be thought to have validated titles to nobility. The moral and
political order of Catalonia were symbolized by a made-up etymology, not by
a particular document or moment of institutional foundation.20 The legiti­
mating significance of bravery was not exclusively the prerogative of the no­
bility. Not only did medieval cities boast of their (usually fictitious) origins,
but (as we shall see), such peasant communities as managed to achieve inde­
pendence from seigneurial domination elaborated their own stories of heroic
resistance (such as the legend of William Tell) or of military victories that se­
cured freedom.21 In Hungary, a nobles' myth of servitude as the result of fail­
ure to perform military service was answered by the reproaches of peasant
crusaders in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, who insisted that they
fought against the Turks (and even occasionally won) while the nobles failed
to fight the common enemy and continued their extortionate lordship over
fellow Christians.
France and the 'Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle'
If nobles' ancestors demonstrated courage at the foundation of the polity,
serfs were the unfortunate descendants of those found wanting in the mili­
tary emergency. Their crime was timidity rather than treason, refusal to fight
rather than some wicked but violent deed such as Ganelons. In keeping with
the image of the peasant as militarily incapable and essentially harmless (de­
spite his frightening and distorted appearance), an original act of cowardice
condemned peasants to servitude. The timidity of vilains was a well-estab­
lished literary theme especially in France.22 The emasculation of rustics was
therefore not a natural condition in an Aristotelian sense, nor the result of a
separate ethnogenesis, but the outcome of a historical moment of testing.
Failure resulted in a licit and appropriate punishment: the perpetuation of
servitude as a concomitant of military incapability.
The first explanation of serfdom based on a supposed historical lack of
nerve appears in the story of Charlemagne's Spanish campaigns in the Histo­
ria Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, more commonly known as the Pseudo-Turpin
Chronicle, first composed in Latin probably in the early twelfth century. It
purports to be an account composed by the bellicose Archbishop Turpin, who
figures memorably in The Song ofRoland. 23 No fewer than six separate trans-
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom III
lations into French were made by scholars working for various Flemish aristo­
crats in the early thirteenth century. The most popular of these translations,
accomplished before 1206, was that of a certain "Master Johannes." The Jo­
hannes version subsequently was added to as well as abbreviated. Pierre de
Beauvais joined to the already eclectic Turpin narrative a translation and
reworking of an earlier text, the Descriptio qualiter Karo/us Magnus clavum
et coronam Domini a Constantinopoli Aquisgrani detulerit, an account of
Charlemagne's supposed expedition to liberate Jerusalem and receive the im­
perial crown from Constantinople.24 Pierre de Beauvais's adaptation of the Jo­
hannes version was itself abbreviated in a form referred to as the "Descriptio­
Turpin."25
The Pseudo-Turpin material mentions both a foundational liberation
of those previously serfs and the enserfment of those previously free. In the
"Descriptio-Turpin," Charlemagne offers freedom to serfs (as well as prison­
ers and other lowly people) who will aid his expedition to fight King Agolant
of Pamplona.26 The obverse of this act of enfranchisement is taken from a re­
lated Descriptio of Charlemagne's journey to the East found only in the Pierre
de Beauvais and modified Johannes accounts (which were, however, widely
diffused). In Pierre de Beauvais, Charlemagne orders that those who are ca­
pable of bearing arms but do not accompany him to Constantinople will owe
the four deniers that denote the servile payment of chevage. Not only will they
have to make this payment during their lifetimes but it will be an obligation
incumbent on their descendants as well.27 In the "Descriptio-Turpin'' debase­
ment to servitude is more explicit: those who did not respond to the sum­
mons were to be serfs, they and their heirs in perpetuity.28
Also in the early thirteenth century, shortly after 12n, the Chanson de Gui
de Bourgogne traced the origins of serfdom to a form of early retirement from
Charlemagne's army.29 After 27 years of fighting the Moors, his troops com­
plained of fatigue. Charlemagne grudgingly allowed anyone who wished to
do so to return to his lands, but only on condition that he and his posterity
henceforth be considered serfs:
But I want them to know one thing in truth
By the faith that I owe to holy Christianity
It is that all their lineage will be unfree serfs
All the days of their life they will be known as serfs. 30
The offer was accepted by 4,700 soldiers, all of them Gascons and Angevins
(an evident display of regional prejudices). The author goes on to observe
that these were the first recorded serfs.31
A century later the Roman de Renart le Contrefoit returned to the sugges-
 T he Origins ofInequality n2
tion of Pseudo-Turpin by making the original crime cowardice rather than
desertion. 32 In the first redaction of the Roman, the primal serfs were those
who refused to follow Charlemagne's armed pilgrimage to Santiago to battle
the Saracens. The author claimed (this time motivated presumably by anti­
bourgeois sentiment) that in Paris there were now a thousand of their
descendants. 33
The second redaction offers a more extensive and peculiar account. At
confession, Renart bewails the pride and rapacity of knights and acknowl­
edges that he has himself extorted servile payments ( mainmorte, formariage,
taille). Posing the question of the origin of serfdom, Renart locates it, as was
by now customary, with Charlemagne. Followers were summoned to accom­
pany him to Santiago. The muster was held at a then-deserted valley known
as Apremont, site of the future town of Provins. Many among the host were
reluctant to fulfill their obligations and wished to stay and settle Apremont.
These "cowards of Apremont," some 16,000 souls, preferred to pay tallage
rather than to risk their lives. Charlemagne allowed this (and added to their
number the ribauds and dice-players expelled from his army), but they were
"condemned" to pay the tallage, another indication of servitude. 34 Tacked on
to this was the account of the city built by these serfs, Provins, and the ety­
mology of its name. When Charlemagne returned, he remarked with amaze­
ment how well set up the town appeared:
The king remarked, "They have worked well,
And by God they've shown themselves [prouve] well.''
And because of this, the place is called Provins.
Here the object of aristocratic disdain was not Paris but one of the Cham­
pagne Fair towns. 35
What had begun as a literary-historical formulation found its way into le­
gal theories of the beginning of serfdom. In Beaumanoir's late-thirteenth-cen­
tury Customs ofBeauvaisis, which would have authority as a legal compilation
well outside the region, several origins are advanced for the deprivation of lib­
erty characteristic of serfdom: serfs are descended from those captured in bat­
tle (an account based on Roman law), or from those forced into servitude by
wicked lords, or from those who placed themselves in voluntary servitude (for
reasons of poverty or piety), or from those who had failed to heed a royal call
to arms (or had fled from a battle). 36
By the time of the last Capetians, the association of servitude with a his­
torical crime was sufficiently well established for it to be referred to offhand­
edly. The preamble to the royal letters of commission for administering the
enfranchisements of 1315 and 1318 speaks of the "misdeed" of the ancestors of
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom n3
contemporary serfs meriting privation of liberty but observes that such priva­
tion contradicts natural law and the very name of Frank ("free"). 37
As Marc Bloch has pointed out, the eloquence of this document does not
disguise the fact that enfranchisements were a means of raising money rather
than acts of gracious beneficence. Nevertheless, the grouping of ideas in the
preamble demonstrates the transformation of a literary into a legal assump­
tion, and the peculiar interplay of juridical, literary, and religious sources.
In Roman as well as Carolingian laws, one finds precedents for the notion
that treason, desertion, or other military dereliction should be punished by
servitude (in these instances slavery). Servitude is what traitors deserve, ac­
cording to several chapters of the Digest. 38 In late Frankish law, the failure to
answer a military summons (heribannum) could lead to enslavement if the of­
fender could not pay the normal fine; ignoring a general levy in the event of
an invasion (a crime called lantweri ) was punishable by death or enslave­
ment. 39 For desertion (herisliz), the normal punishment was death, although
this could also be commuted to perpetual slavery.40 But these legal sanctions
do not completely explain the appeal of associating cowardice with serfdom,
an association suggested by the theological idea of a sin committed in the
past that continues to affect morally the descendants of the sinner. Thus the
cowardice of peasant ancestors is a secular, "national" version of the Curse of
Noah, if not of the Fall itself. The association also results from consideration
of freedom and privilege. It is not surprising that the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle
is both the first place in which military failure explains serfdom and the first
source to identity the etymology of "France" as "terre franche," land of the
free.41
The alliance of bravery with freedom and of cowardice with servitude
plays itself out in both legal and pseudohistorical literary texts. The paradigm
has certain limitations; thus Louis X and Phillip V seem to indicate in the
preambles to their enfranchisements that even if servitude was merited for
the original misdeed, its eternal perpetuation was not. In Catalonia, where
the Pseudo-Turpin material would be adapted to a more dangerous and dis­
puted situation, the king of Aragon in 1388, desiring the freedom of the
servile population, seemed prepared to argue that the sentence of degradation
had a limit, that "the time of servitude has already passed," and ordered his
archivist to find the documents to prove it (presumably in the form of origi­
nal records enacting the sentence). 42 If the medieval period for the most part
did not share the tendencies of modern racism to posit literal biological dis­
tinction, it placed the moment of division far enough back in the historical
past to account for the marked, physical difference of the servile population.
The historical moment, however, was not so removed as to erase all trace of
 The Origins ofInequality n4
original equality. The peasant and the lord were still in some fundamental
sense equal, especially where there was no obvious or relatively recent con­
quest to encourage a theory of "ethnic" differentiation.
In Catalonia and Hungary, the French myth of an original act of cowardice
was appropriated in the context of an extension and hardening of servile
tenurial arrangements. Whereas thirteenth and fourteenth-century France
saw widespread emancipation of serfs in return for payments to the royal
treasury, Catalonia and Hungary gradually inflicted servitude on previously
free populations, restricted freedom of movement, and defined a subordinate
legal status out of what had been miscellaneous seigneurial exactions.43 His­
torical myths were elaborated to defend the extension of servile institutions
and so are found in chronicles and legal writings rather than in religious, di­
dactic, or literary works, the habitat of Noah's curse.
Medieval jurists eagerly consumed opportunistic reworkings of national
history.44 In France, as previously noted, Beaumanoir was content to cite an­
cestral cowardice as one of several possible explanations for a social condition
that was becoming less widespread. For Hungarian and Catalan jurists, how­
ever, a fairly urgent problem presented itself: how to explain and justify a
seemingly anomalous condition contradicting the supposed liberties of the
gens, a condition that, far from dying out, continued to define lordship and
its economic perquisites. In both territories, legends of heroic fot.:1ndations al­
ready existed, so not only did serfdom have to be fit retrospectively into a glo­
rious epic of foundation, but the jury-rigging had to be accomplished with­
out shaming or tainting all the heirs of the imagined past. To paraphrase the
Hungarian jurists' formulation: how could nobles and serfs emerge within
one nation, from one historical moment?
Catalonia
I have elsewhere tried to describe the Catalan explanations for servitude and
how they were shaped by jurists to suit older foundation myths.45 The inspi­
ration for linking serfdom to an original act of cowardice seems to have come
from the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle. The Latin version of Pseudo-Turpin was
known in Catalonia as early as u73, when a copy was made at the monastery
of Ripoll.46 The Carolingian era was always an ambiguous foundational pe­
riod for Catalonia. On the one hand, the Franks had freed the core territory
from Islam. On the other hand, the Franks ruled as oppressors and were use-
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom n5
less in fighting Islam, according to the first and most widely diffused legend:
the independence from the Franks won by Count Guifre "the Hairy." At
some point between n6o and n84, the Gesta comitum Barcinonensium made
Guifre the Hairy-a real ninth-century count of Barcelona-the founder of
Catalan independence. The Gesta claimed that Guifre's father had been mur­
dered by Franks who were supposed to escort him to the royal court to stand
trial for killing a noble who had insulted him. When he grew up, Guifre was
able to return to his home and overthrow the Frankish count. Still obedient,
however, Guifre effected a reconciliation with the king of France. When the
Saracens invaded the county of Barcelona, Guifre received from the king,
who was unable to help him, a promise that if he could drive the Saracens out
unassisted, he might have the county free of any tie to France.47
Charlemagne therefore did not figure in the earliest Catalonian narratives
of foundation. This was in part because the Gesta reflected the memory of the
events in 985 and the years immediately following, when Barcelona was
sacked and burned by forces of the rulers of Muslim Cordoba and the feeble
last Carolingian and first Capetian monarchs failed to come to the aid of the
beleaguered count of Barcelona.48 The Gesta thus conflated an embroidered
version of the career of the ninth-century Guifre I with the last recognition
of Frankish lordship in 985-87, when Count Borrell asked for military aid to
no avail. The retreat oflslam and subsequent victories against it were annexed
to an earlier achievement of de facto independence. The heroic legendary
foundation of Catalonia partakes of the common pairing of courage and lib­
erty by means of a test in which endurance and victory in military adversity
establishes a permanent right to privileged independence.
Beginning in the thirteenth century, the foundational moment was ex­
tended further back to Charlemagne, while two complementary legends were
created to offer a basis for both nobles' privileges and peasants' subjugation.
In the Cronica de Espanya, written in 1268 by Pere Ribera of Perpignan, it was
Charlemagne who began the task of liberating Spain from the Saracens.
Charlemagne's work was followed up by Guifre, who was unaided by the em­
peror's weaker successors (from this point the Cronica follows the course laid
out by the Gesta).49 Although Charlemagne in fact never set foot in the future
Catalonia, the Christian conquest of the Marca Hispanica did take place dur­
ing his reign. His exalted reputation made it difficult to ignore his role in the
establishment of Catalonia and also placed Catalans in the grand narrative of
European chivalric history.50 While from.the point of view of the counts of
Barcelona it was important to distance Catalonia from its Frankish ante­
cedents (France would continue to make claims on Catalonia intermittently
 The Origins ofInequality n6
to the time of Napoleon), Charlemagne and his immediate successors sanc­
tioned Catalan institutions far more effectively than could recherche, local
tenth-century events and personages.
Two legal comments on the origins of servitude demonstrate how the
Frankish era could be used in defense of the enserfment of one group of
Catalans by another. They are contained in a fifteenth-century Escorial man­
uscript of the enactments of the Catalan parliament (Corts). The first is a
gloss to the constitution "Item quod in terris sive locis" of the Barcelona par­
liament of 1283, which restricted movement of servile seigneurial and ecclesi­
astical tenants to royal land. The anonymous jurist explains why these tenants
are subject to "redemption," a manumission payment necessary for them to
leave the lord's jurisdiction, which served as a key index of servile status. He
does so by means of a historical excursus.51 When the Saracens occupied
Spain, they held the Christian population captive ( quasi captiuos), forcing
them to make redemption payments and other services. "Christian princes"
(not at this point further specified) came to restore this territory to the Faith,
but the timid captive population ignored the call to help the liberating
armies.52 The Christian princes conquered anyway, and although they had
the right simply to kill the peasants who were now their captives, they merci­
fully chose instead to perpetuate the servile conditions first imposed by Mus­
lims.53 The gloss evidently dates from the very late thirteenth or early four­
teenth century, for it appears to be prior to another gloss by Bertran de Ceva,
datable to the early fourteenth century (see below).
Clearly this theory derives from Roman law, according to which being
taken captive in battle was one of the few ways in which free men could be
degraded into slavery.54 The gloss also refers to the Roman legal common­
place that servus is derived from servare-that the captives were "preserved"
rather than being killed.55 In common with most medieval lawyers, the
anonymous author of this gloss willingly and indiscriminately applied the law
of slavery to the situation of serfs, even though Catalonia harbored a substan­
tial slave population (comprising North Africans, Tartars, Sardinians, Greeks,
and Caucasians), so that the difference between the two forms of dependence
was in practice obvious.56 The author, however, was not content simply to re­
fer in general to captivity in battle as the origin of serfdom, but rather situ­
ated it at a precise (if vaguely defined) moment of testing in which failure to
heed the summons to battle amounted to treason or apostasy, punishable by
means reminiscent of the Fall or Noah's curse.
The same Escorial manuscript contains a short commentary on certain
customary laws of Catalonia, which offers another version of the legend that
is more precise as to the foundational event. The author of this brief work,
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom n7
the Consuetudines Cathaloniae, was Bertran de Ceva, a jurist active in the
early fourteenth century.57 Here Charlemagne appears specifically as the lib­
erator of the territories up to the Llobregat River (corresponding to medieval
Old Catalonia). Responding to the proposal simply to kill the captives,
Charlemagne points out that nobles cannot be expected to cultivate the land
(a backhanded acknowledgment that peasants labor for the benefit of the en­
tire society, which could not survive without them).58
The legendary account of the origins of serfdom would be transmitted
from legal to historical works in the fifteenth century, and survive as a believ­
able explanation into the nineteenth century.59 This should not obscure the
more immediate usefulness it enjoyed as a bulwark against attacks on
seigneurial rights in the late Middle Ages. From the time of King Joan's ef­
forts to obtain the end of serfdom on church lands in 1388 to the end of the
successful peasant rebellion in 1486, which led to the abolition of peasant
servitude, Catalonia was bitterly divided over serfdom. Members of the royal
court in the early fifteenth century denounced it as bringing infamy to Cat­
alonia, and peasant agitation combated serfdom even before the outbreak of
open war in 1462. The cowardly-peasants legend would be popularized by the
historian Pere Tomich in his writings of 1438, where he made Louis the Pious
(who, unlike Charlemagne, had actually campaigned in the future Catalonia)
the author of the punishment and dated it to 814.60 The influential jurist Joan
de Socarrats, commenting in 1476 (during the Catalan peasant uprising) on
the primary collection of Catalan law governing lords and vassals, restated
Bertran de Ceva's formulation of the origins of serfdom.61
The heightened atmosphere of the fifteenth-century Catalan conflicts
over serfdom (and between the crown and the nobles) encouraged the forma­
tion of a parallel legend of the origins of noble privilege. The legend of Otger
Catal6 and his nine barons appears to have been developed from older mate­
rial in the early fifteenth century to portray the nobility rather than the
counts of Barcelona as the real founders of Catalonia.62 After Charles Martel's
victory at Poitiers, a group of nobles maintained a guerrilla war against the
Saracens. After Charlemagne's invasion, the emperor rewarded the warriors by
dividing the now conquered territory among them. This land was named
"Catalonia'' in honor of their fallen leader, Otger Catal6 (an etymology fre­
quently questioned but largely accepted until the nineteenth century). Not
surprisingly, the names of Otger's captains corresponded to those of the great
houses of the High Middle Ages.
The Otger legend did not say anything about the peasants, but by credit­
ing the achievement of the first victories against the Moors to the nobles, it
legitimated aristocratic privilege. Courage in the era of Charlemagne was re-
 The Origi,ns ofInequality n8
warded while fear was punished. In 1438 the historian Tomich combined Ot­
ger and the cowardly-peasants legend to make explicit the simultaneous ori­
gins of privilege and subjugation. He gave much more attention to the heroic
story, but the two legends together explained the internal divisions among
Catalans.63 Gabriel Turell's chronicle, Recort, written in 1476, derived a suc­
cinct constitutional statement from the two histories: that Charlemagne had
established the liberties of Catalonia for the brave and highly born, not for
the rustics or "the common mob." 64
The question of how members of the same gens could be of such different
social conditions was thus answered. Rather than inventing a racial or histor­
ical theory that would posit different ethnic origins for serfs and nobles, the
Catalan account imitated biblical teachings by identifying the founding of so­
cial orders within the creation of the nation, orders distinguished by valor ver­
sus cowardice. A primordial act established a constitutional basis for differen­
tiation of status and removed the subjugated from the definition of Catalan at
least as regarded the liberties of Catalonia, thus excusing serfdom while sav­
ing Catalonia's military reputation.
That this was not ultimately morally acceptable is shown by the peasants'
civil-war victory in alliance with the monarch, a victory eventually followed
by the abolition sentence of 1486. Nevertheless, despite the bitterness of that
conflict and the ideological strength of the nobles' resistance, there was a wide
area of agreement about what constituted a basis for freedom and acceptance.
All agreed that human beings were by nature equal. That the ius gentium ex­
cused subjugation of captives encouraged seigneurial apologists to call the an­
cestors of the serfs "captives," but more than this, they asserted the contin­
gent nature of freedom as the result of courage and bondage as a consequence
of timidity.
Hungary
A similar legend was elaborated in Hungary, where a series of peasant revolts
and near-revolts would also take place, preceding a general insurrection in
1514. Suppression of the 1514 uprising would result in the enserfment of the
Hungarian peasantry according to laws drafted in light of the same French
historical justifications that were taken up less successfully in Catalonia.
As in Catalonia, in Hungary military failure set in a foundational past
was used by historians and lawyers to account for social difference. It was
supposed that the ancestors of the Magyars held an annual military muster
and that failure to attend was punished by death, banishment, or hereditary
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom n9
servitude. Those who were of lower condition (later specifically serfs) de­
scended from those Hungarians who had failed in this test of valor.
The introduction of the legendary origins of serfs can be pinpointed
more precisely in Hungary than in Catalonia. Simon of Keza, court chaplain
to King Ladislas "the Cuman," composed a Hungarian history that elabo­
rated a heroic pre-Christian past.65 The Gesta Hungarorum was written be­
tween 1282 and 1285, at approximately the same time that the parliament
meeting in Barcelona enacted the fundamental legislation for Catalan serf­
dom. Simon obtained some of his material from earlier Latin chronicles writ­
ten in Hungary, but, as studies of the labyrinthine textual history of these
early chronicles have shown, they do not represent any genuine folk tradition
of the migration or conversion periods but are rather congeries of antiquar­
ian learning.66 Simon was original in attempting to explain the aristocratic
privileges of his era by reference to a specific foundational practice.67 He was
most interested in explaining the prerogatives of the nobles; since serfdom
was scarcely developed, his concern with the lower orders was minimal. Nev­
ertheless, his distinction between nobles and everyone else would be useful in
elaborating justifications for a sharper contrast between noble and unfree
nearer to the end of the medieval period.
Simon was also the first Hungarian chronicler to celebrate the fictitious
link between Mag yars and Huns, a notion current in the West from shortly
after the Hungarian invasions began at the end of the ninth century. By the
time of the Nibelungenlied, written in Austria or Bavaria shortly after 1200,
the inhabitants of Hungary were referred to as "Huns" and were confused
with the real Huns, who had warred against the Burgundians in late antiquity.
The Nibelungenlied depicted the Huns in positive terms. Their king, Etzel,
was pagan, but they were chivalrous, wealthy, and hospitable. Their war with
the Burgundians was caused by Kriemhild's revenge upon her Burgundian
brothers for their murder of her husband, Siegfried, not by their aggression.68
Despite the changed image of the Huns, early Hungarian historians were
reluctant to accept what still seemed an unflattering association. "Magister P,"
an anonymous source for much of Simon's work, acknowledged the possibil­
ity of some institutional relationship with the Huns but was unwilling to
make them the literal ancestors of the Magyars.69 Simon, on the other hand,
embraced the notion of barbarian ancestors. He took advantage of the estab­
lished pivotal significance of the conversion of the Hungarians (convention­
ally dated from King Stephen's reception of a crown from Pope Sylvester II
in 1000), an event contrasting with (but also in some sense preserving) the
customs of warlike barbarian forebears. King Stephen became a saintlier ver-
 The Origjns ofInequality 120
sion of Clovis, the leader of a successful barbarian people newly and fervently
converted.
Much in the manner of the Catalans, the Hungarians made use of such
possibilities as already existed in established literature (such as the Nibelun­
genlied ) to connect themselves to the prestigious figures in the dominant cul­
tural realms of medieval Europe. Of course Charlemagne really did have
something to do with Catalonia, and the Catalan legends of social founda­
tion were presented in a more or less recognizable historical setting. The
Catalans also could produce a legend that made use of the Christian struggle
against Islam. Although in both realms Christianity was joined to the estab­
lishment of the nation, the Hungarians had at one time been pagan, while
the proto-Catalans were Christians who had liberated territory from Islam.
Even if the Hungarian state, in common with others of east-central Europe,
was thought of as coming into existence with the conversion of its kings, it
was possible to imagine and invent a preconversion Hungarian past of per­
manent constitutional significance (as indeed was the case for the various
Germanic tribes). The Catalans, in contrast, did not have a mythologized ex­
istence prior to Charlemagne (they rarely displayed any interest in their Visi­
gothic antecedents).
Hence Hungarian serfdom would be located in a Hunnish past well be­
fore the arrival of Christianity. According to Simon of Keza, following earlier
authors, the Huns descended from Noah's son Japheth through Magog and
more proximately from the brothers "Magor" (whence Magyar) and "Hunor"
(Hun).70 Simon, however, distinguished between "pure" and "mixed" Hun­
garians. The pure were descended from 108 original clans (108 being the num­
ber of noble families established in a tabulation of 1280).71 The others were at
least partially descended from foreign nobles and war captives. Although he
seems here to establish a quasi-ethnic division into superior and inferior levels,
Simon does not use the opportunity to propose a different ancestry for nobles
and non-nobles. He specifically tells us that both are found among pure and
mixed Hungarians, that both form part of the Hungarian natio.
In addition to the "pure" and "mixed" division, Simon of Keza made use
of the French theme of serfdom resulting from cowardice, transposing the
moment of testing, however, into Hunnish customary times. In the year 700,
we are informed, the Huns elected captains and began their movement west­
ward from Scythia, selecting a leader, Kadar, who disciplined and shaped the
army. At this time the Huns established the custom of sending emissaries to
call the population to a military "muster" (literally, to attend, armed, a gen­
eral council). Those who failed to obey the summons without good reason
were subject to one of three punishments according to the "Lex Scitica'': be-
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom 121
ing cut in two with a plowshare, degraded by banishment, or degraded to
servile status.72
Although Simon's reference to the year 700 confers some precision on his
account, only by implication does his text date the supposed beginnings of
degradation as a military penalty to this period. More importantly, to explain
the origin of a servile population, he posited not an original act of cowardice
corresponding to the failure of the Catalan "captives" to heed Charlemagne's
call, but only a more general unwillingness to engage in military activity.
Bearing arms and fighting the enemies of the nation merited the privi­
leges of liberty, while refusal to do so led to hereditary servitude, hence sepa­
ration from the original egalitarian community. While the alleged laws of the
Huns might not have been maintained intact in the period after the conver­
sion, they nonetheless permanently identified the medieval kingdom and its
society and served as constitutional myths. Simon concludes with a formula­
tion of the problem answered by his history: it was one's own wicked actions
that differentiated one Hungarian from another, "for how else, since one fa­
ther and mother procreated all Hungarians, could one of them be called no­
ble, another ignoble, unless he were held to be guilty of such a crime?"73 Here
Simon is interested in the contrast between the nobility and everyone else,
rather than the specific origin of serfdom. Like all the other foundational
myths we have noted, the Hungarian version aimed chiefly to laud noble ori­
gins and justify privilege rather than to theorize about the peasantry, but as
we shall see, Simon's account would later be used as a historical explan ation
for the existence of the unfree.
Simon of Keza's sources for the differentiation of estates were French and
Italian, certainly not Hungarian. No single text had the specific influence that
the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle exerted in Catalonia. Jeno Szucs has demon­
strated Simon's familiari ty with both literary and legal learning of France and
Italy.74 Simon visited Germany and France and served as an emissary to
Charles of Anjou upon his arrival in Calabria from Tunis after the failed cru­
sade and death of Louis IX (1270). Simon was the first Hungarian historian
to use a French toponym (Cha.Ions) and was eager to show how up-to-date
he was. So he neither wrote in isolation nor shaped an already extant popular
tradition. He placed Hungary in the mainstream of historical explanations for
the differentiation of estates and privileges. The threefold punishments of his
tale reflect the influence of Roman law (the Lex Julia maiestatis) more than
any "Lex Scitica." Next to the barbaric method of execution by colter is the
technical formulation of banishment and an imitation of Roman degradation
by enslavement in the mines.75 The Roman de Renart as well as the older Gui
de Bourgogne and Pseudo-Turpin were all in circulation at this time and must
 The Origins ofInequality 122
have suggested to Simon (much as to the anonymous Catalan jurist who
commented on the 1283 parliamentary legislation) the possibility of ascribing
to a formative historical era the contemporary social division.76
The enduring contribution of Simon of Keza's history was to enshrine the
supposed Hunnish origins of the Magyars. The separation of noble from
non-noble on the basis of the military summons would also become canoni­
cal, but gradually and through reformulation over centuries. The 1358 Chron­
ica de Gestis Hungarorum (known as The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle)
repeats almost verbatim the story and conclusion of Simon of Keza.77 There
are a few differences, however. The penalty of execution is absent (only ban­
ishment and servitude appear), and the chronology has changed to place the
invention of Hungarian institutions at the historically attested time of the
Huns.Whereas Simon of Keza had located the westward migrations and elec­
tion of Kadar in the eighth century, the Illuminated Chronicle placed them in
the reign of Valens, 373 A.D.
A more significant alteration occurred in the late fifteenth century, when
the condition of the servile population and the privileges of the nobles with
regard to the king were more contested than when Simon of Keza wrote. In
the Chronica Hungarorum, by Janos Thuroczy, the response to the military
muster was the origin not merely of noble and non-noble but of noble and
serf.78 Most of the relevant chapter in Thuroczy repeats the history told by Si­
mon of Keza. It is now a specific edict from the era of Kadar as well as custom
that mandated the three punishments for failure to obey the summons.
Thuroczy records a picturesque detail: a bloody sword was brandished by the
messenger who announced the armed assembly, a gathering that in Thuroczy
is both a deliberative body and the muster for a military expedition.79 In ac­
cord with earlier accounts, Thuroczy says that the custom of the three pun­
ishments persisted until the time of Geza (grandson of the dynastic founder
Arpad, father of the Stephen who converted to Christianity). He added the
observation that by means of this custom, many had been reduced to perpet­
ual "rusticity."80 The final rhetorical question is also changed: "For since they
were of one and the same birth and came equally from Hunor and Magor,
how else could it be that one could be made a lord, another a serf or peas­
ant?"81 Reflecting the seigneurial pressures of the late fifteenth century, the
Chronica assumes that serf and rustic are equivalent and makes explicit the
descent of contemporary serfs (rather than all non-nobles) from the customs
and laws of the Huns.
During the reign of the ineffectual Jagiellonian king Vladislav II (ruled
1490-1517), the Hungarian nobles obtained official recognition of the "Doc­
trine of the Holy Crown" of Saint Stephen, according to which the nobility
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom 123
shared the exercise of royal power with the monarch. The doctrine formu­
lated in the fourteenth century considered the nobility and higher prelates as
equal parts of a corpus of an organic royal power along with the monarch.82
At his election, Vladislav recognized his obligations to the noble and clerical
estates, and acknowledged that the crown itself was in the custody of noble
conservatores at the castle ofVisegrad.83 Equality within the noble estate was
underscored by the common military service obligations ascribed to the Hun­
nish foundational era; thus by 1500 the nobility solidified against the foreign
king and began to press their claims to subjugate the peasantry, and com­
bined myths of privilege and constitutional domination coalesced.
The sudden and violent uprising in the spring and summer of 1514 terri­
fied the Hungarian nobility and was put down only after considerable effort
and extraordinary savagery.84 The insurrection began when a crusade against
the Turks authorized by the newly elected Pope Leo X and led by the arch­
bishop of Gran-Esztergom became the occasion for peasants to air their griev­
ances against nobles. According to the peasants, the nobles refused to coop­
erate with the crusade, preferring to oppress their tenants as usual at home
rather than fight in defense of religion and the homeland. The peasants trans­
formed the crusade into a holy war against the nobility, whom they de­
nounced as infidels, worse than the Turks. The nobles were the rebels, accord­
ing to the crusaders, rebels against God and against the responsibilities in­
cumbent on members of the military caste. Later we will consider the
program enunciated by the leaders of the peasant armies, but here it is worth
indicating elements of propeasant agitation that responded to the legend of
the Hunnish origins of nobles and serfs.
In condemning the nobles, the peasant crusaders in the first place con­
trasted their own willingness to fight with the indifference of the chivalric es­
tates. In France and Catalonia, territories well removed from the frontiers
with Islam in the late Middle Ages, the assumption that rusticity meant mil­
itary incapacity was plausible. In Germany, the imperial laws governing who
could carry weapons enshrined the symbolic privileges and responsibilities of
nobles by restricting the ownership and display of swords and other chivalric
weapons to members of the knightly classes.85 In Hungary, however, peasants
were often enlisted in armed campaigns against the Turks and were far from
incompetent in the use of weapons.
After the rebellion was quashed in the late summer of 1514, punitive laws
were enacted that further reflect the legendary origins of differentiation
among Hungarians. As we have seen, the French legend could be read as
punishing cowardice or treason. With the harrowing recent experience of
peasant violence (real and imagined), the authors of legislation degrading vir-
 The Origins ofInequality 124
tually the entire rural population to servitude could not contemptuously as­
sume that only nobles had martial skill or an affinity for violence. The pro­
logue to the laws of November 1514 condemned the plebs rustica for the
slaughter and destruction wreaked on the higher orders at a time when the
kingdom was already beset by infidel armies.86 Article 14, however, spares the
majority of rustics from the penalty of death deserved by "traitors" who rebel
against their lords.87 The peasants are thus "unfaithfur'-rebels rather than
cowards-yet, as Richard Hoffmann has pointed out, Article 14, restricting
the movement of servile tenants, repeats the formulation of Thur6czy, sub­
jecting the rustic population to "perpetual servitude."88 The article took par­
ticular vengeance on the leaders of the revolt, whose descendants were to be
banned from ever holding any office or privilege of even the most local sort,
so that they should endure perpetual servitude and bewail forever their an­
cestors' crimes. This evokes not only Thur6czy but the hereditary taint of
Ham and of those who failed Charlemagne. The posterity of the instigators,
particularly of those who encouraged the rape of noble women and girls, were
to be treated as a "cursed generation." 89
An even more graphic example of legislation borrowing from quasi-his­
torical narrative is offered by the Tripartitum, a semiofficial collection of cus­
tomary law compiled in the fateful year 1514 (and published in 1517) by Istvan
Werboczy at the instance of the Hungarian parliament.90 The Tripartitum
uses Simon of Keza and Janos Thur6czy to justify more explicitly the privi­
leges of nobles with regard to the peasantry on the one hand and the king on
the other. The relevant passage appears in order to show the origins of nobles'
"liberty." Like the Illuminated Chronicle, the passage designates two rather
than three punishments for ignoring the military summons, but they are now
execution and servitude, bringing the penalties closer to both the "cowards of
Apremont" model and the Catalan legend of Charlemagne, but more imme­
diately referring to the "merciful" intent of the 1514 laws that present servi­
tude as the commutation of a merited death sentence.
Werboczy produces, as it were, a short-term and a long-term justification
for serfdom. In a section of the Tripartitum that concerns the dependent
peasantry (the jobagiones), their degraded legal status results simply from the
recent insurrection against the nobility.91 The specific consequence of their
subjugation is an inability to move off their lords' land at will. Earlier in the
Tripartitum, however, the privileges of nobles were explained by reference to
the historical legend of the Hunnic military summons. The general lack of
freedom and the subordination of the peasantry are thus of long standing,
but the specific penalty of the 1514 insurrection is deprivation of the freedom
of movement.
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom 125
Discussing the contrast between noble liberty and rustic bondage, Wer­
boczy's Tripartitum repeats Thur6czy's conclusion, which is itself, of course,
based on Simon of Keza's rhetorical question. The distinction between lords
and serfs, however, is slightly altered: the Huns' custom explains why descen­
dants of Hunor and Magor include both lords and serfs, nobles and non-no­
bles or peasants.92
At this point the major concern for Werboczy was not simply to explain
and justify social distinction within the Hungarian nation but to determine
true Hungarian identity-who could be considered Hungarian with the
rights and privileges thereto appertaining? The answer was not an "ethnic"
definition but a historical-juridical finding.
The peculiar political idea that the Hungarian monarchy ultimately
resided with the noble estate was perfected by Werboczy and joined to the ex­
planation of peasant subjugation in what has accurately been described as a
"Magna Carta'' of aristocratic national identity.93 Werboczy grouped together
the nobility, previously split between greater and lesser magnates, as a body
representing the Hungarian crown and nation. Building on the doctrines al­
ready present in parliamentary legislation of 1505 (by which the Hungarian
nobles required that in future a Hungarian rather than foreign monarch be
selected), Werboczy defined the Hungarian state in terms of the nobles,
repositories of its national identity.94 The Tripartitum neatly asserts that the
populus, in whom resides the power of the Hungarian crown, consists of the
secular and ecclesiastical nobility only, not the non-nobles.95
Like Gabriel Turell's Recort, which stated that Catalan liberties were for
nobles, not rustics, Werboczy's addition to the Doctrine of the Holy Crown
removes the lower orders from consideration as members of the national com­
munity without actually inventing what could be called a "racial" or "ethnic"
distinction. The Tripartitum defines the nation as an aristocratic polity against
both king and commoner. The success of this formulation was due not only
to the weakness of the Jagiellonian monarchs but to the crushing of the 1514
uprising. The contrast with Catalonia is quite obvious. The kings of Aragon­
Catalonia emerged victorious from the Civil War of 1462-86 and servitude
was abolished. Gabriel Turell, on the losing side, is no more than a minor cu­
riosity recalling nobles' claims and ambitions, while Werboczy's codification
and supporting arguments would be authoritative for over three centuries.
The 1514 legislation and the Tripartitum did not enserf the countryside
suddenly, for the extension of servitude antedates 1514.96 In addition, the dis­
astrous Battle of Mohacs (1526) resulted in the conquest of most of the king­
dom by the Turks and the secession of Transylvania, so that the local customs
and tenurial relations of much of the former kingdom of Hungary were over-
 The Origins ofInequality 126
turned. Nevertheless, serfdom remained in the remnant of western Hungary,
and the disaster did not directly affect Hungarian constitutional develop­
ment. Consequently, whereas serfdom was abolished in Catalonia in the fif­
teenth century, serfdom in Hungary continued into the modern era.
How can we classify the historical mythology developed in Catalonia and
Hungary, two such different societies both heavily influenced by France and
its official culture and historiography? Richard Hoffmann discusses Ireland,
Spain, Hungary, and Poland as examples of medieval "racist ideologies/' but
this term does not accurately apply to societies that did not posit a literal dis­
tinction of blood or language. While the English could regard the conquered
Irish as a separate and inferior people (by extension, an inferior "race"), the
Catalans and Hungarians pointed to a moral and juridical moment in past
history when a hereditarily transmissible curse was created. True, this curse
was carried in the blood, but this does not constitute a racial theory, because
it does not reflect either a real or an invented ethnogenesis. The difference be­
tween the curse of Noah and secular legends is a difference not merely of
chronology but of geopolitical scope: the biblical curse affected entire peoples
descended from Canaan, while Charlemagne, Kadar, and other quasi-histor­
ical figures established ordinances that drew a line within a linguistic and na­
tional community.
The affinity between historical myth and legislation is thus of crucial im-
portance in Catalonia and Hungary. Not only did law receive historical and
ethical justifications from literature in both realms, but discriminatory prac­
tice (i.e., serfdom) affected a population that was not self-evidently con­
quered, captive, or "outsider." In the absence of a historically attested subju­
gation (such as the Germans could claim in the East or Frederick II in Sicily),
servitude would appear to be artificial. There was no obvious reason why a
segment of the population should be unfree; thus an essentially arbitrary law
would have to be buttressed by historical precedent placed at the moment of
national origin.
England
One reason why the historical mythology of servitude never amounted to
much in medieval England was that the rupture caused by the Norman mili­
tary conquest disabled potential arguments defending servitude on the basis
of continuity with an ancient arrangement. An image of servitude did color
some accounts of the conquest and its consequences but was never brought
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom 127
to bear on discussions of the status of actual villeins. In fact, the matter of the
origin of villeins was not much explored. Military victory and defeat corre­
spond imperfectly to a free/ servile distinction. Not that there was less agita­
tion in England (which experienced its share of peasant rebellions directed
against servile institutions), but the Norman Conquest was a more recent
event than the supposed foundations of Hungary or Catalonia, and also it
was amenable to quite contradictory interpretations.
Within the English setting it was conceptually possible to link servitude
with a specific transgression. According to Roger of Wendover, King John or­
dered knights and foot soldiers to Dover to forestall a French invasion in 1213,
threatening to degrade to servitude anyone failing to heed the summons.97
But this was simply the same sort of thing as the Frankish lantweri, the failure
to answer a general mobilization against invasion. Not only was King John's
threat without substance, but only in the vaguest sense could it apply retro­
spectively to those already villeins.
The obvious moment of social formation for medieval England was the
Norman Conquest. William's victory was sometimes attributed to the sins of
the English. The Worcester version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the en­
try for 1066, sought to explain the catastrophe by blaming, rather generally,
the sinful conduct of the entire populace.98 Henry of Huntingdon considered
the Norman invasion the last of five plagues sent to punish the Saxons for
their behavior.99
Ascribing the dramatic overthrow of a society to divine retribution for the
sins of the defeated was, of course, nothing new. Gildas and Bede had attrib­
uted the Saxon invasion to the misdeeds of the British.100 No element of soci­
ety was singled out for blame; therefore the historical event of conquest
amounted to a natural misfortune, a phenomenon like the comet that fore­
told the invasion-part of the inconstancy of fortune and regimen of change,
not resulting from a single key transgression followed by a particular chastise­
ment. The punishment, of group sin by group disaster was predictable and
reasonable according to the tradition reflected by historians of both the Saxon
and Norman invasions.
There was at least an opportunity to connect conquest with servitude.
Thorlac Turville-Petre, Douglas Moffat, and Thea Summerfield have called
attention to three fourteenth-century chronicles that identify the conquered
English as thralls or serfs to the Normans, seeming to imply a genealogy or
ethnic origin for contemporary villeins. 101 According to Robert of Gloucester
(writing in the late thirteenth century), the nobles ("heye men'') of his era
were of Norman origin while the lowly were the descendants of the van­
quished Saxons.102 The defeat and its consequences were God's will, a punish-
 The Origins ofInequality 128
ment for infidelity as well as for the deadly sins of gluttony, lechery, and sloth.
If any part of the population bears a greater share of blame, however, it is the
nobles and the clergy, the former for robbery, the latter for "hordom."103
Thomas Castleford (ca. 1337) offered an even grimmer view of the conse­
quences of 1066: the English were permanently placed in "thraldum," "bond­
age," and "servage" by the victorious Normans.104 Castleford, however, was
less concerned than Robert of Gloucester to apportion guilt, content to de­
pict King Harold as untruthful but not as the instigator of an exemplary
moral chastisement. For Castleford, the dire results of the conquest were due
to the ius gentium, not to divine vengeance. Peter Langtoft's chronicle (writ­
ten in French), states simply that the English have lived under foreign rule,
"in servitude and pain," since the conquest.105
Robert Mannyng's Chronicle (written before 1338 and based on Wace and
Langtoft) emphasizes both sin and punishment. The sin was not that of the
English as a nation but rather that of Harold's individual perjury. Yet, as in
Thomas Castleford, the conquest led not to social differentiation but to the
degradation of the entire English population: "Since he [i.e., William] and his
have held the land in heritage, that the English have been forced to live in
servitude, He placed the English in thralldom, who were formerly so free."106
Mannyng elaborates on Langtoft and goes beyond him in emphasizing
Harold and Godwin's breaking of their oaths.107 They are forsworn, he reiter­
ates, making the defeat of the Saxons closer to the model of Noah's curse (or
Charlemagne's): permanent subordination stemming from par�icular but for­
mative incidents in the past. Mannyng would therefore seem to have the ele­
ments necessary for a myth of the origins of servitude on the order of what
would be developed for Catalonia and Hungary: a crime with serfdom as its
hereditary retribution. But Mannyng was not interested in villeinage.
Like the other fourteenth-century chroniclers, he means by thralldom a
political condition, not personal legal servitude. It is the entire nation of the
English who have been held in bondage, and Mannyng employs the first­
person plural to include himself among those subjugated. It was King
William who "sette us in seruage." On the fateful day of the decisive battle
"ourfredom . . . for euer toke the leue."108 As Moffat has pointed out, it could
not be literally true that any of these authors were of unfree status; Robert
Mannyng, for example, was a Gilbertine monk.
Turville-Petre's argument that the historians' laments were intended to
denounce villeinage (for the self-interested purpose of alleviating the Gil­
bertines' labor shortage once villeins became free agents) is not convincing.109
The fourteenth-century historians did have an image of conquest and captivity
in relation to King William I, but it was not unique to them. Matthew Paris,
National Myths, Origins ofSerfdom 129
writing at St. Albans in the mid-thirteenth century, describes the conquest
and the Conqueror's oppressive customs as bringing about the "servitude" of
the English, which he compares to the biblical tyranny of the Egyptians.110
The complaints of the later historians are connected to more immediate
issues of their times, such as the barons' wars against Edward II, denunciation
of "foreigners," and especially taxes. They have little to do with serfdom or its
justification. In one of the above-cited passages, Mannyng talks of William
"setting us in servitude," and of the fall of freedom, going on to complain
about taxation ("borgh taliage"), which is clearly what in this context consti­
tutes the true misery of "servage."lll At its most bombastic, the Norman
Conquest myth of origins is about language, privilege, and identity (Moffat
refers to "race," which I think exaggerates even the perceived difference).
Arguments over villeinage did take place, but it was in the demands of
peasants, not the apologetics of lords, that the Norman Conquest was in­
voked, and there only indirectly, by way of Domesday Book. The Norman
q=onquest, regarded as an unalloyed triumph of the aristocracy by seven­
teenth-century revolutionaries and nineteenth-century reformers, could serve
as at least a notional basis for common liberty in the Middle Ages. On the eve
of the English Rising of 1381, villeins in many parts of England claimed that
their lands lay in the "ancient demesne" of the crown, so that they should be
free tenants of the king rather than unfree tenants of ecclesiastical or aristo­
cratic lords. Peasants looked back to the beneficent lordship of the Norman
and early Angevin monarchs and beyond them to an original Anglo-Saxon
freedom.112 Appeals were made to Domesday Book, which peasants consid­
ered authoritative regarding what tenants on what lands were free and unfree.
Rather than overturning earlier liberty, the Norman Conquest (and Domes­
day Book in particular) was regarded as enshrining it within the sphere of
royal protection. A petition presented to Parliament in 1377 speaks of villeins
who, abetted by unnamed agitators, have purchased exemplifications (official
excerpts) of Domesday Book and withheld their required services in order to
prove and demand exemption from seigneurial jurisdiction.113 The "inaccu­
racy'' of the peasants' perceptions ("ancient demesne," for example, was a rel­
atively recent legal definition) is less important than the belief in written doc­
uments and Norman precedent as charters of peasant liberties. The idea was
by no means far-fetched, in that it was accepted that land once in royal hands
might continue to enjoy privileged status. In 1364, Edward III wrote to the
convent of Saint Swithun remonstrating with them over the treatment of ten­
ants in Crondall (Hampshire) who had complained that they were being
made to perform services beyond the obligations rendered at the time the
manor had belonged to Edward's forebears.11 4
 The Origins ofInequality 130

English peasants demonstrated a peculiarly persistent faith in the possi­

bility of achieving exemption from servitude by means of formal legal proce­
dures. Although English peasants, like peasants elsewhere, burned documents
Part' 3
during rebellions, the English villeins believed that somewhere there were an­
cient charters dating from an authoritative source that would prove their lib­ Unfavorable Images of Peasants
erty. In the early fourteenth century villeins resident in the towns of St. Al­
bans demanded rights to representation, borough status, and permission to
grind grain at home on the basis of Domesday Book but also on the basis of a
supposed charter of King Offa of Mercia that they believed the abbot was
holding in secret. By 1381, faith in the existence of a venerable charter of lib­
erties was so strong that the rebels demanded that the abbot produce it, and
when he could not, they forced him to write out a new one.115 That peasants
considered Offa and Domesday Book to be compatible shows the degree to
which the Norman Conquest could he shaped by positing an earlier tradition
of liberty. The conquest had brought aristocratic lordship to England but had
not destroyed a supposed earlier free status guaranteed by the crown.

History was therefore not exclusively the weapon of seigneurial apologists. As

we shall see in connection with the late-medieval insurrections, an answering
mythology of origins was presented from the peasant side. That we know
more about legends justifying serfdom is due to the way in which records sur­
vive, reflecting the literacy of the upper orders and their greater opportunity
to construct rationales for their domination. For them, history explained ex­
ceptions to natural law or deviations from social solidarity. If all humanity
possessed equal dignity, the Bible at least afforded certain moments of conse­
quential disgrace and certain primordial sinners such as Cain and Ham af­
fecting disproportionately one sector of the future populations. If a more lo­
calized privilege seemed unfairly distributed, an event in the national past
could he used to explain, again by means of a hereditary transgression, the
privation of rights otherwise to he enjoyed. History, both sacred and secular,
provided answers to the question of why divine, natural, or customary liberty
had been infringed upon or destroyed. These answers might seem at first
glance consistent to the point of becoming universally accepted truisms. The
curse of Noah explained servitude, after all, from Saint Ambrose to the ante­
bellum South. The suggestion of treachery or cowardice survived transplanta­
tion from France to such different realms as Hungary and Catalonia and per­
sisted for centuries in both.
 Chapter' 6
Representations of Contempt
and Subjugation

Previous chapters discussed the ways in which peasants were useful and nec­
essary to society and explanations for why they did not receive the benefits
promised by the model of mutually dependent orders. Peasants produced not
only food but wealth for the nobility and clergy, but received little recom­
pense for their toil, as was frequently acknowledged and lamented. By virtue
of their status as members of the Christian community, it was difficult simply
to categorize them as alien in order to excuse their oppression. We have ex­
amined biblical and pseudohistorical theories that posited some ancestral
crime or deficiency to explain the subsequent lack of freedom and justify ex­
ploitation. This chapter will consider another form of justification for the ill­
treatment of peasants, namely, the proliferation of images of peasants as base,
filthy, and stupid. While intended as amusing condemnations of the lowly,
the satiric literary representations of peasants may be read as an elaboration
of Aristotelian natural slavery. The peasant by nature is fit for toil and, more­
over, toil that does not deserve a reward but rather is assured by coercion. To
the extent that he is naturally base, the peasant is appropriately exploited, and
there is no need to invep.t a temporal origin for inequality.

Parody and Satire

That the medieval peasant was usually regarded with contempt is hardly a
novel observation. The rustic or vilain was a literary type for the base, the
ridiculous. He served as a model of how not to act, epitomizing qualities op-,
posed to the virtuoµs chivalry of the knight. 1 In the fourteenth century Jean
de Conde wrote a brief poem entitled "Des Vilains et des Courtois," in which
the two social types and their qualities are given as absolutely contrasting, the
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 134
one motivated to do evil, the other good.The etymological origin of the word
vilain, according to Jean, is vilenie.2
Medieval literary genres such as the French fobliaux or German Schwank­
literatur were devoted (in whole or in part) to the antics of rustics, their fool­
ishness, murderous violence, or proclivities for the lower body functions.
Mock "grammars " or taxonomies of rustics offer a precis of these themes.A
Northern French text of the late thirteenth century divides vilains into no
fewer than twenty-three varieties.Some are like animals (vilains porcins, vi­
lains chenins, vilains asnins), others merely ferocious (vilains ramages). Others
are odd in their appearance, while still others are associated with filth and ex­
crement.3 A fifteenth-century "Peasant Catechism'' begins by defining rusticus
as a "Hebrew noun'' because a peasant is as inept and wicked as a Jew.It is of
the third declension, for "before the cock had crowed twice, the rustic shat
three times." Additionally, rustics are of the "asinine race."4 A Goliardic text
of the twelfth or thirteenth century offered a "complete " declension of rusti­
cus: "this villein, of this rustic, to this devil, this thief, 0 robber!, by this
plunderer." In the plural: "these accursed ones, of these gloomy ones, to these
liars, these wicked people, 0 evil ones! by these infidels."5
There is a temptation to approach this vocabulary of negative characteris­
tics either too literally or too symbolically, as if harsh depictions of peasants
amounted to realistic social criticism on the one hand, or were merely liter­
ary forms of reference to an abstract lowliness on the other.The old historicist
approach, which saw the representations of peasants in literature as unmedi­
ated commentaries on society, was certainly over-literal.At the beginning of
the twentieth century Stanley Galpin distinguished the two worlds of peas­
ant and knight according to a clear division of unfavorable and favorable.
Galpin organized his thesis according to the negative qualities embodied by
the peasants and the positive qualities of the chivalric order.The knight has
fine manners, the rustic is rude; the knight is generous, the rustic miserly; and
so forth.Comic denunciation of rustics amounts unproblematically to a hier­
archical social statement.
It is easy to demonstrate that medieval writers by and large held peasants
in contempt, but their purpose was often tangential to social criticism.The
contrast between vilain and courtois was not necessarily structured with the
peasant in mind as a direct target of satirical attack.Per Nykrog observed that
the fobliaux use courtly verse forms and are intended as parodies, not as in
any sense "realistic " depictions of rustics.6 Using almost the same title as
Galpin for a recent study of high and low in French literature, Kathryn Grav­
dal regards the contrast of vilain and courtois as a literary trope, a dichotomy
Contempt and Subjugation 135
with shifting borders affording opportunities for transgression. For Gravdal
these medieval texts are self-reflexive parodies in which it is genre (such as the
romance) that is mocked, not the peasant.7 Gravdal argues that antirustic dis­
course amounts to an occasion for transgressing styles and forms, a parody of
literary topoi rather than satire directed at the peasantry as a social class, a.
game (parody) instead of a lesson (satire).8
This divergence of literal and literary approaches affects the way in which
literature is used as evidence for attitudes toward society.Pierre Bonnassie, in
discussing the degraded condition of rustics· at the mercy of the seigneurial
regime, cites section (branche) IO of the Roman de Renart-a series of versi­
fied animal fables of the twelfth century-as an example of seigneurial con­
tempt.Here Renart refers to the vilain Lietard and his like as "disloyal vil­
lein ...stinking serf ...son of a whore, mangy villein ...stinking villeins,
filthy and thieving."9 Gravdal, on the other hand, in discussing Renart, rejects
a transparent reading of social attitudes against rustics. Not only are there
heroic rustics in the other Renart stories, but the purpose of the work is to
show the world as comically immoral.The fro�tiers between courtly and rus­
tic (as between animal and human) are ambiguous and easily dismantled or
redrawn.Thus the passage in branche 7b in which the peasants ineptly arm
themselves against an attack of hungry animals is a parody of epic battle
scenes, not a statement about the nature of peasants.10
Are the two interpretive tendencies focusing on literal contempt versus
literary parody really so divergent? Could one even have a parody without a
comical referent? After all, what makes the parody funny is that the vilain is
already recognized as a ridiculous figure. Medieval compositions do indeed
refer to prior traditions and conventions, often for the purpose of amusing
distortion, but this does not vitiate their pointed significance as discourses
about the peasantry.
The poems of Neidhart (who died between 1237 and 1245) and his fol­
lowers made fun of the solemn conventions of the German Minnesang by
transposing the setting from the court to a benighted village.11 The high­
flown sentiments of longing were directed not to delicate and distant noble­
women but, with comic inappropriateness, to assertive and lustful peasant_
lasses.Neidhart's hero and namesake is a knight who consorts with the peas­
ants of a remote and impoverished village called Reuental ("Valley of Grief ").
He is admired by the village girls (especially in the so-called Summer Songs),
but frustrated by his male peasant rivals in his attempts at seduction (in the
Winter Songs).
Although his initial intent may have been to parody the refined ceremony
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 136
of court poetry, Neidhart W<?uld come to be known for his mockery of peas­
ants. Later poetry purporting to be by Neidhart emphasized their violence
and boorishness.12 A group of Schwanklieder ("Prank-Songs"), another group
of short plays about Neidhart, and a fifteenth-century cycle of poems with a
comic protagonist named Neidhart Fuchs ("Neidhart the Fox") describe a
veritable war between the knight and the rustics.13 Neidhart thus moves from
genre parody to antipeasant satire. He begins in the thirteenth century as a
hapless and rather fainthearted lover but becomes by the mid-fourteenth
century a cunning and sadistic Eulenspiegel-like figure whose sole aim is to
torture and humiliate peasants. It is in this latter guise, not as a parody of
courtliness, that Neidhart would remain popular until well into the sixteenth
century. The peasants in Neidhart really are supposed to be contemptible
rather than mere representations of generic lowliness. The poems were read
by medieval audiences more as antipeasant satires than as parodies of Min­
nesang, so that by the fourteenth century any original intertextual purpose
had been pushed aside by a less subtle antipeasant sentiment of unmistak­
able, direct social import.14
Peasants were contemptible and so could function both as symbols of re­
versal or inversion and as direct objects of disdain. Not only did they symbol­
ize the dishonest, unchivalric, and lowly, they were dishonest, unchivalric,
and lowly {it was supposed). It was their "real" baseness that made parodies
explicable.
The general category of "unfavorable" depiction of peasants included a
number of subdivisions. It is not just that peasants might be filthy in one
work and appear as dishonest in another, but that there was a lexicon of neg­
ative images. Several major axes of pejorative discourse occur: the peasant as
object of ridicule versus the peasant as dangerous; the lowly but useful peas­
ant versus the completely base and useless; peasants as representative of hu­
man nature versus peasants as grotesque, semihuman, or bestial figures. Be­
hind these oppositions lies a fundamental distinction between what might be
regarded as "social" descriptions (peasants as avaricious) and fanciful hyper­
bole (peasants as savage animals). Bernard of Cluny's denunciation of rustics
for evading the payment of tithes15 is quite different from the comical accu­
sation (found in the same Italian manuscript with the declension of rusticus)
that rustics crucified Christ, or that they resemble asses, wolves, and dogs
(from another, somewhat earlier Italian source).16 Both social and typological
condemnations, however, return to the same set of attributed characteristics,
and of course, as modern racism has demonstrated, the establishment of
grotesquely comical types and norms of behavior for subordinated groups is
deadly serious business.
Contempt and Subjugation 137
It is useful to explore these different forms of contempt since they reveal
issues of social fear, degree of control, and the limits of the human. We
should keep in mind, however, that we are not really looking at a set of uni­
dimensional images about "outcasts," however hysterical the statements may
at times be. Language describing peasants might be derived from or related
to that applied to other despised peoples, as in the case of the "Hebrew ety­
mology'' of the word "rustic," or Chretien de Troyes's description in Yvain of
the grotesque herdsman who "resembled a Moor."17 In an important recent
compendium of artistic conventions for denoting outcast status, Ruth Mellin­
koff has shown how traits such as kinky or red hair might cross over among
various groups, including peasants.18 Nevertheless, there was a significant dif­
ference between peasants and Saracens, Jews, or lepers in that peasants could
not consistently be regarded as "other" or as marginal either to the social
economy or to the Christian faith. Or rather, representations of peasants as
other-as not human, as meriting no consideration as fellow Christians by
the dominant elements of society-had to be exaggerated and grotesque. But
this effort could never be completely successful as long as peasants were con­
sidered necessary for the survival of their superiors.
Rustics as Ign orant ofReligion
One might expect medieval peasants to have been characterized as insuffi­
ciently Christian or as practitioners of superstitious (hence anti-Christian)
rites. The Latin word paganus, meaning "rustic," began to be applied as a term
of contempt by Christians to believers in the old religions in about 300 A.D.,
especially with the end of the urban Roman religion and the conversion of
the empire.19 Martin of Bragas "De correctione rusticorum," written in the
mid-sixth century, has influenced our idea of the survival of pagan rituals in
the countryside and the image of the rustic as eternal pagan.20 In late antiq­
uity "rustic" and "rusticity" referred to lower qualities of character, not just
rural folk. The term rusticitas was often employed to mean a lack of appropri­
ate understanding of or reverence for sacred persons, places, and events rather
than literal lack of Christian belief, or "rural paganism."21 In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, chroniclers would describe heretics (such as the Walden­
sians or Cathars) as rustici, but here the word denotes ignorance without im­
plications concerning the social status of the movements' followers.22
Frequently, however, rusticus actually did mean what it seemed to: a peas­
ant, quite likely an ignorant or insuf-ficiently reverent one, but in any case a
member of a social category and not simply a type. For Saint Augustine rus­
ticus, as opposed to urbanus, had the connotation of ignorant versus civilized,
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 138
but for Martin of Braga "rustics" clearly meant the literal country dwellers
who also engage in pagan practices.23 Throughout the late antique period and
beyond, rusticus rather more consistently denoted someone engaged in agri­
culture, with a connotation of ignorance and susceptibility to paganism.24
In the tenth book of his Decretum, Burchard of Worms (early eleventh
century), like M artin of Braga, provides a catalogue of superstitious "beliefs,
and ceremonies tied to agricultural life.25 Our impression of an incompletely
Christianized countryside persisting throughout the Middle Ages has been
influenced by the studies of Jean-Claude Schmitt and Carlo Ginzburg con­
cerning the appropriation of Christian rituals to serve local ends and the exis­
tence of practices traceable to pre-Christian ceremonies and outlook. 26 But if
we look at even the harshest attacks against the peasants, the charge of pa­
ganism is much less common than typification of peasants as merely igno­
rant, materialistic, or negligent in their religious observance.
There are certainly examples of rustics who supposedly did not know a
thing about the most basic tenets of Christianity. The English Dominican
preacher John Bromyard cited the example of a shepherd who responded to
the question of whether he knew of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
by saying "The father and son I know well, for I tend their sheep; but I know
not that third fellow; there is none of that name in our village." 27 The
preacher wrings his hands over this ignorance, but does not lament an alter­
native religious practice. Rustics are much more commonly accused of stu­
pidity or of preoccupation with their everyday concerns than of unbelief or
heresy.
In his list of contrasting French examples of chivalric and lowly literary
types, Stanley Galpin assembles a number of instances of rustic irreligion,
but here too it is really their grossness or foolishness that is mocked. Le Don­
nei des Amants states that vilains have nothing to do with God and the an­
gels, not because of some deficiency in their observance but because they are
base.28 According to the fabliau "Le vilain qui conquist Paradis par Plait,"
rustics are not admitted to heaven, as a result of unpleasant character rather
than any defiance of Christian belief and practice. 29 The eleventh-century
Book of Sainte Foy, which reports numerous miracles involving peasants,
nevertheless characterizes a certain scoffer from the vicinity of Conques it­
self as an ignorant rustic. It is not surprising, according to the author, that
such errors should arise from "a peasant, a stranger to all wisdom, completely
unfamiliar with every divine virtue, and �hat is worse, a liar with a depraved
and perverse mind." 30 This ignorant man had mocked the author, Bernard
of Angers (who wrote the first two books of the miracle collection), for
Contempt and Subjugation 139
telling a story of a miraculous cure of a mule; hence the outraged tone.
While individual rustics, objects of seigneurial robberies and violence, re­
ceive the help of the child Saint Foy, rusticity always remains in potential
proximity to irreverence and lack of proper religious understanding, but not
paganism.
The Appearance ofthe Rustic
More than religious ignorance or superstition, the clearest indication that rus­
tics constituted a lower order of humanity was their physical form. Peasants
were at best crudely made, coarse featured, ill-dressed, and graceless. In
French literature especially, the peasant was endowed with comical or threat­
ening qualities of subhuman grotesqueness. While the rustics in German lit­
erature before 1400 tended to act in a boorish, even frenzied way, they were
u�ually of normal shape and appearance. Elsewhere, especially in France, they
were often depicted as dark-skinned or "black," either by reason of their la­
bor in the sun and their proximity to the earth, or as a sign of overall
hideousness. Froissart describes the peasants of the ]acquerie as small, dark,
and ill-armed.31 In a dispute over servile condition that took place in Mantua
in about 1200, a witness testified that the father of the man in question, a cer­
tain Bazelarius, had been well-formed, nearly white, and taller than the scribe
writing the document. Another witness said he had been small and fat, but
agreed that he had been white and reasonably good-looking.32 In this instance
stature and color were considerations in evaluating servile status.
Peasants were frequently presented as misshapen: deformed and unnatu.­
rally large or, occasionally, dwarfish. They were commonly said to resemble
animals, an analogy that carried moral as well as physical implications. The
spectrum of characterizations runs from mere ugliness to comical and unnat­
ural extremes of grotesqueness. Some images depict the peasant as a familiar
subordinate, lowly in a normal way (ill-dressed, bent over, dark), while others
render him as a disturbing inhabitant of a world apart, subhuman. The first
type of image reflects a complacent idea of rustic labor, of toil performed in a
productive landscape by beings who perhaps need to be treated firmly (like
d�mesticated animals), but whose distance from the courtly is (in our terms)
cultural rather than biological. They occupy a position below, but not totally
apart from those above them whom they sustain. The second, more exagger­
ated type of image emphasizes the strangeness of the rustic and his distance
from humanity.
These images are not polar opposites. In both cases peasants can be rep-
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 140
resented as animals, although usually the grotesque peasant is rendered as a
wild animal while the toiling peasant in the fields is likened to a draught an­
imal. The images can also appear side by side. The Luttrell Psalter, for exam­
ple, contains bas-de-page illustrations of rustics working away with various
implements but also peculiar, semihuman grotesque forms known as babe­
wyns (i.e., "baboons") that in this instance may also be intended as represen­
tations of peasants.33
Rustics could be depicted as impossibly malformed and bestial. The two
guards to the chamber of Laris in the Romance of Claris and Laris, for exam­
ple, are vilains of an ugliness "never before seen." They are covered with black
hair, their nails are as long as snakes, their eyes fiery. Their teeth resemble
those of a wild boar, their noses those of cats, their snouts (hure) those of
wolves.34
Yet even the most bestial semblance could be transformed into a recog­
nizable and human figure. A series of both literary and quasi-historical texts
describes forest encounters between nobles and solitary rustics whose horrify­
ing appearance transcends the "realistic" but who are, nevertheless, revealed
to be human, capable of speech and even courtesy. The knight Calogrenant
in Chretien's Yvain describes a herdsman whom he came upon while lost in a
forest. This rustic not only "resembled a Moor" but is like no fe�er than six
animals: horse, elephant, cat, owl, wolf, and boar.35 In Aucassin andNicolette,
Aucassin encounters a cowherd with bestial physical traits: he is huge and
hideous, with an immense black muzzle (again hure), red lips, and yellow
teeth.Variations on the word " large" (grand) are repeated obsessively.36
According to John of Marmoutier's Historia Gaufredi (ca. n8o), Count
Geoffrey of Anjou was lost while hunting (again in a syl van setting). He met
a charcoal burner, blackened, of hideous and intimidating appearance, who
nonetheless helped him find his way and described to the count (who did not
reveal his identity) the abuses committed by his officials on the hapless in­
habitants of the countryside.37 In a similar incident, the young Philip Augus­
tus, on the eve of his scheduled coronation, lost his way in the forest of Com­
piegne during a hunt. In what appears to be an example of a historical narra­
tive imitating a literary convention, the chronicler, Rigord, reported that a
solitary rustic with a misshapen head and black face so frightene� the young
prince in the forest that the coronation had to be postponed.38
Yet another knight lost in the forest is the protagonist in a dialogue be­
tween a knight and a rustic written in 1443 by Felix Hemmerli, a ferocious
hater of peasants. The rustic is black, hirsute, bestial. His head is overlarge,
his face twisted, and his expression "asinine." Somewhat surprisingly, under
the circumstances, the rustic speaks not only correct but florid Latin.39
\
Contempt and Subjugation 141
All of these denizens of the woods are misshapen, large, hirsute, bestial,
and frightening. As Jacques Le Goff has noted, the forest is the site of the
strange, the savage. The knight who enters it, whether for adventure or by ac­
cident, places himself in a world opposite that of the court.40 The forest,
home of the wild man and other sinister humans and semihumans, is also re­
moved fr�m what might be considered the normal habitation of rustics, the
fields closer to civilization in which labor of a less solitary, more obviously
productive sort is performed.
Sylvan loneliness and danger accentuate the strangeness of the rustic, but
it would be wrong simply to let this go as another example of an undifferen­
tiated "medieval Other." The encounters mentioned above begin with the
monstrous but evoke the possibility of the peasant's humanity. In response to
Calogrenant's jocular but uneasy question, "Come, tell me if you are a good
or evil thing," the herdsman responds that he is a man. Calogrenant then
asks, "What sort of man are you," to which the herdsman responds with sim­
ple dignity, "Just as you see me and no different."41 Count Geoffrey is praised
for recognizing his interlocutor as a man rather than regarding him with the
contempt usually felt by the rich for the poor. They converse earnestly about
the common misery of fallen humanity, condemned by the sin of Adam to
earn its bread by the sweat of its collective brow.42 Felix Hemmerli's noble
warrior, on his way to fight the heathen, is accosted insultingly by the rustic.
The knight asks if the rustic is a devil or a man, and the rustic responds that
he is a man, the same as the noble only better.43 Their dialogue is certainly
weighted in favor of the knight, but the rustic is reasonably adept in argu­
ment, and eventually, convinced of the wickedness of his tribe, he shows the
knight the way out of the woods, and they part as friends.44
None of the rustics in these stories is the equal of the knights, but they
come into focus as human from their original beastly semblance. They oscil­
late between the bestial and the human (or praiseworthy) in a way that is
characteristic of medieval discourse about strange peoples. In .The Song of
Boland, for example, some of the Saracens (notably those from far away) are
described as alien in appearance, especially blacks such as Abisme or the
50,000 troops faced by the dying Roland. The Saracens in general are vile,
dishonest, accursed.45 Nevertheless, not only do they share similar tastes in
horses, armor, and ceremony with their Christian counterparts, but they can
be wise and brave, as is Blancandrin, for example.46 The poet describes the
ruler of Balazuez as well-formed, clear-eyed, and courageous, lamenting that
such a fine knight is not a Christian. It is now only faith and not nature that
separates them.47 In the famous entrance to the nave at the basilica ofVezelay,
the apostles are sent out at Pentecost to the farthest reaches of the earth,
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 142
where pygmies, dog-headed people, and those with ears reaching to their
waists dwell. These monstrous races are nevertheless deemed sufficiently hu-,
man to receive the Word of God.48
This is to argue not that the Middle Ages was actually "tolerant" but
rather that images of humanity or animality were not fixed. There was a dis­
course of unease characterized by doubts over whether or not to consider a
subordinate people fully human. One sees a reiterated recognition of differ­
ence alternating with its disavowal similar to that found in colonial discourse.
An obsessive but inconsistent focus on the separation between cult�vated and
barbaric was accompanied by a nagging refrain of the notion of similarity.
The view of "the Other" is more complex and internally contradictory than
the simplified picture often given of absolute determination (by race or other
criteria) of inferiority and superiority.49 The peasants presented a problem be­
cause their subhumanity was even more difficult to maintain consistently
than that of Muslims or other dearly outcast peoples, for the peasants were
numerous, productive, and (most importantly) Christian.
Nonetheless, that it was logically difficult to argue the essential bestial
character of the peasantry did not forestall attempts to make such a charac­
terization. In the late Middle Ages, an era in which peasant revolts were a se­
rious preoccupation of the higher estates, rustics were commonly likened to
wild animals. In earlier times, rustics had been represented comically as ani­
mals without necessarily being regarded as rebellious. Thus a fabliau of the
thirteenth century describes rustics as "unfortunate in every respect, hideous
as wolf or leopard. They don't know how to live among people."50 The hu­
manist Maffeo Vegio wrote a savage antipeasant satire in 1431, the Rusticalia,
in which the peasants are told to cease complaining about wolves or dogs
stealing their animals, for it is they who are the real thieves and despoilers.51
In more serious (if overblown) rhetoric denouncing their insurrections,
the savagery and unreason of the peasants were likened to uncontrolled bes­
tial wildness. There was now little notion of utility; the peasants are threats
to order, verminous even, to be thinned out if not altogether destroyed. Pope
Gregory IX, in a Crusade letter of 1233 directed against the Stedinger rebels
in northern Germany, said they are like beasts, only even more cruel.52 The
abbot of Vale Royal, in a dispute with the men of the villages of Darnell and
Over in 1336, described the peasants who had attacked his entourage as "bes­
tial men of Rutland."53 The Swiss, exemplars of rebellious peasants, were re­
ferred to by their Austrian would-be overlords as "mountain beasts."54 Felix
Hemmerli denounced the Swiss as monsters, not human beings. 55 The most
sustained hysterical attack on rebellious peasants, likening them to animals,
\
Contempt and Subjugation 143
is book 1 of John Gower's ¼Jx clamantis, in which the rabble takes on the as­
pect either of domestic beasts that have escaped control (asses, oxen, swine,
dogs) or of wild or verminous creatures (foxes, flies, frogs).56 At the end of
book 1, with the suppression of the revolt, the peasants have become draught
animals, oxen, who have returned to the yoke after a terrifying episode in
which they left the fields, forgot their nature, and turned into lions, panthers,
and bears.57
The Domesticated Peasantry
Contrasting with the solitary, savage rustic and the wild rebellious mobs is the
useful laborer whose raggedl dirty, hirsute appearance is a token of his natural
subservience, a lowliness befitting the productive toil described above in the
first chapter. Eupolemius, a Latin poem of the late twelfth century probably
written in Germany, records a battle between the forces of God and the forces
of Satan. The wicked scorn their opponents as peasant rabble, more fit for the
plow than the �ord as is proven by their hair, cropped like that of slaves; by
their "necks designed for receiving blows"; and by their short tunics, which
leave their limbs uncovered "so that you might think satyrs were frolicking."
In keeping with an essential paradox of Christianity, it is the good who ap­
pear Jo be the lowly and subordinate and who are ultimately victorious.58
Cropped hair was a sign of subordination, but its inverse, extreme hairi­
ness, was an even stronger indication of a more savage lowliness, a resem­
blance to the beasts. The wild man of the forests, a semihuman savage figure
with a long history in literature, ceremony, and even heraldry, was covered
with hair that grew from all parts of his body.59 Rustics in Garin le Loherain,
Yvain, Aucassin et Nicolette, and Hemmerli's Dialogue either have overgrown
hair or are covered with hairy dothing.60
Rustics are also filthy. Even Rigaut, rhe doughty rustic fighter in Garin,
is large and shaggy, and his face is blackened by dirt in that he has neglected
to bathe for six months.61 Their natural element is dirt and manure. So per­
vasive is the associa�ion of peasants with excrement that it merits a separate
discussion.
Dirt indicates not only a lack of civilization but the nature of peasant toil,
productive, useful, but unpleasant and so degrading as to remove the unfor­
tunate victim from full consideration as human. The Franciscan bishop of
Silves, Alvaro Pelayo (died 1352), accused rustics of dishonesty, refusal to pay
church tithes, and a host of other vices. But lazy and uncooperative though
they may be, they are so devoted to tilling the soil that they have become
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 144 Contempt and Subjugation 14 5

identified with it: "For even as they plough and dig the earth all day long, so
they become altogether earthy; they lick the earth, they eat the earth, they
speak of the earth; in the earth they have reposed all their hopes, nor do they
care a jot for the heavenly substance that shall remain." 62 The archbishop of
Zamora, Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo, expressed similar sentiments in a sur­
vey of estates and occupations written about 1465. He begins by praising agri­
culture but says that men exhaust themselves in tilling the soil, an activity
that demeans the intellect. Again the laborers are greedy and disobedient, un­
like the peasants of earlier times, but they are so devoted t9 the soil, "so ut­
terly earthly, that we may truly say of them: They shall lick the earth and eat
it."63 The author of the poem "Despit au vilain" remarked, "Instead of eating
meat, the vilains should graze the fields naked on all fours together with the
cattle."64 Here the peasants may be bestial, but the resemblance is to farm
rather than forest animals.
8. The labors of the months, August, wheat harvest. From the Queen Mary
Yet it was widely acknowledged that this labor, however degrading, was
Psalter, early fourteenth century. British Library, MS Royal 2 B VII, f. 78v.
important, even vital. In the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, scenes Reprinted by permission of the British Library, London.
of peasant labor are juxtaposed with those depicting the recreations of the no­
bles. Calendars showing the labors appropriate to each month have a long
history antedating the fifteenth century, but the Berry Hours portray a par­ only are the peasants bent over awkwardly to cut the wheat with their sickles,
ticularly sharp contrast between aristocratic leisure and rustic work, exhibit­ they are being supervised by a reeve or steward pointing with a stick (Fig. 8).68
ing the nobles' profit from the docile, slightly comical toil of the laborers. Not The rustics inhabit a different space in terms of comfort, character, pos­
only are leisure and labor "transformed into an antithetical characterization of ture, and physique, but they are working in close proximity to the dwellings
divergent milieus," as Erwin Panofsky has noted,65 but clearly the rustics' sub­ of their masters. They are not strange beings of the remote forest. Their labor
ordination is regarded as appropriate.66 The January miniature shows the is suited to their God-given nature, one completely different from that of the
duke feasting by a roaring fire, while the February image depicts peasants try­ aristocracy, to be sure. If they are lower humans, they are, nonetheless, neces­
ing to warm themselves outdoors in the snow. In the background a peasant sary. The splendid castles in the near background could not exist without
cuts wood; another drives a donkey toward a village. The figures are not in their labor. The duke of Berry may have regarded his tenants with compla­
themselves particularly distorted, but their attitudes and postures are unself­ cency and ease (as opposed to th� discomfort felt by the wealthy before social
consciously coarse. Tlie distant man and woman show their sexual parts, inferiors typical of the modern era), but the lords did not delude themselves
while a woman in the foreground lifts her skirts before the fire. March shows concerning the source of their wealth, a calculation requiring no particular
the duke's castle of Lusignan in the background with rustics plowing and economic sophistication.
pruning vines. The peasants are bent over, and one shows his posterior. In The peasants of the Duke of Berry or in the Luttrell Psalter are docile, as
September the vines are harvested in front of the towers of another castle of opposed to the ravening animals evoked by accounts of peasant rebellions or
the duke, Saumur. At the center, adjoining draft animals, a peasant is again the hopelessly disobedient rustics of the Spanish bishops cited above. There
bent over displaying his rear end. The attitude here is not one of patronizing was, however, an intermediate category of vilain who was not naturally coop­
or nostalgic evocation of rustic simplicity but a harder-edged contempt.67 erative but could be forced to fulfill his lowly role as provider of extensive
The Queen Mary Psalter, made in early-fourteenth-century East Anglia, labors for his betters. The labors of the peasant were specified with derision
also presents the labors of the month in a way that is in some respects charm­ in a poem written in 1247 and found within a fragment of a cartulary drawn
ing and idealized. Nevertheless, in the scene of an August wheat harvest, not up by Mont-Saint-Michel.69 The verses are in the vernacular; the census ac-
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 146
companying it is in Latin. The poem is mocking while the census is serious
(as such documents tend to be). They are in the same hand and dearly re­
lated. Both concern revenues extracted from the peasants of Verson, a village
near Caen in Normandy. Thus the verses ridiculing the tenants stand along­
side a routine and technical inventory of their payments and other obli­
gations. The poem, written by a monastic official named Estout de Goz, be­
gins by denouncing the peasants who have challenged the onerous services
demanded by the monastery. The author accuses Viscount Osbert, lord of
Fontenay-le-Pesnel, of inciting the peasants' complaint brought before the
Norman Court of the Exchequer.
The tone is humorous and scornful. Near the beginning the vilains are
described as "more rascally than mastiffs," and the author concludes by as­
serting that there are no more rascally folk than the vilains ofVerson.70 The
235-line poem enumerates the peasants' duties in connection with harvesting,
cartage, the keeping of pigs, pasturage, and various labor services. Among
other things, it includes the first authentic mention of something that looks
like a seigneurial right to symbolic sexual humiliation, here termed cullage
(w. 159-74).
The text seems to resist analysis, as Alain Boureau points out.71 It has
long been considered a vernacular verse equivalent of what is enumerated in
the census as owed to the monastery. Indeed there are many points that coin­
cide: the extent of the hay-mowing obligation, the tax levied on pigs paid on
the day of the Virgin's Nativity (September 8), and the digging and mainte­
nance of ditches.72 On the other hand, not only are most of the obligations
less onerous in the census than in the poem, but according to Boureau, the
poem is intended to show the degrading obligations that the viscount will
impose if he accomplishes his attempts to take over the village. Bo�reau ar­
gues that it is hard to believe that the monastery would describe with such
light-hearted cynicism the unfair and burdensome nature of its own de­
mands.73 The right of the lord to receive fines for young women marrying off
the seigneurie (what would be referred to in other contexts as formariage) is
here given a particularly degrading coloration that may indeed be an accusa­
tion against Viscount Osbert, or a warning to the vilains about what he is
likely to demand. The author says that a certain "Rogier Ade" has told him
"what shame the vilain might have escaped," namely the three sous cullage
fine. The vilain would never have married off his daughter had he known
how much would be demanded.74 It is possible that the vilain "escapes" this
obligation by remaining within the jurisdiction of the monastery.
'Whether or not the poem concerns the monastery's rights (and at least a
considerable part of it does), it is hard to see it as a complaint about secular
\
Contempt and Subjugation 147
mistreatment of peasants, for after all, they are already regarded as disobedi­
ent dependents who should be coerced to work. Their duties, whether owed
to the monastery legitimately or claimed by the viscount illegitimately, are
seen as amusing precisely because they are onerous. It is characteristic of the
poem that it derides the peasants' labors while condemning their slackness
and "dishonesty." The multiplicity of services and the poem's gay contempt
show the lowliness of the tenants, their suitability for toil despite their reluc­
tance. Their labor is coerced, whether by Mont-Saint-Michel or Viscount Os­
bert. No claim is made that this service is rendered in return for anything
such as protection or prayer. They labor because that is what being a vilain
entails.75
The inhabitants of Verson were not, in fact, unfree tenants,76 nor were
they subject to quite the arbitrary mistreatment implied by the term cullage,
but the poem seems to distinguish itself from the careful enumeration of the
census, which recognizes a hierarchy or at least multiplicity of tenant cate­
gories owing different dues. In the poem they are indistinguishable, all vi­
lains, all rascals.
Another example of what appears to our sensibilities as a cruel and inap­
propriately merry account of seigneurial exploitation is an Italian poem of the
late fourteenth century by an otherwise unknown Lombard writer named
Matazone de Calignano. This composition, translated by Paul Mayer into
modern French under the name "Dit sur les vilains," begins by mocking the
dishonesty and impudence of vilani. 77 They complain loudly to their lord of
their mistreatment, but it is right for the lord to imprison and constrain
them. They forget their origin. The first villein was born of the flatulence of
an ass.78 From this it has been established that he should be nourished with
bread made of maslin and raw rye, with beans, garlic, and other humble
foods. He will have to wear dark and strange-looking clothes. He talks to his
animal as they work, for they are in fact related, sharing the same parent.
Thus far we have the conventions of the foul nature of rustics and their coarse
diet.
The lord, on the other hand, was born in a garden, of a rose and a lily, ac­
companied by seven allegorical maidens (of whom only six are mentioned:
Joy, Happiness, Prowess, Largesse, Beauty, and Bravery). They salute the
knight and describe for him the nature of his dominance over the vilan who
is to be given to serve him. At this point the various tasks of the rustic are
enumerated month by month along with various things the lord ought sim­
ply to take from him. In February, at Carnival, seize a capon from him every
day. In March, make him work in the vineyards and prohibit his wearing
shoes. In June demand a day of labor service each week. In sum, by making
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 148
him work in this fashion, one punishes the wicked rustic.79 The tone is light­
hearted, and the author, who describes himself as lowborn but wanting to as­
sociate with the knights rather than the rustics, intends the enumeration of
arbitrary and humiliating obligations to be amusing but (with only slight ex­
aggeration) fitting. Here is Marc Bloch's "essence profonde" of serfdom, a hu­
miliating productivity.
Contemptuous images of subjugation were thus perfectly compatible
with a certain understanding of where the wealth of the nobility came from.
The peasant is "rascally," wicked, and uncooperative but responsive to coer­
cion. A mixture of irritation and amused indulgence is conveyed in Leon Bat­
tista Alberti's brief discussion of how to deal with peasants in the course of
his Della Famiglia. Rustic tenants are wicked, and their main purpose in life
is to cheat their masters, pretending to be poor, constantly complaining and
never rendering what they are obligated to. Yet even if one could provision an
estate by simply buying goods in the market, it is better to rely on one's own
agricultural laborers. With close supervision one can get something out of the
rustics, and after all, their villainous tricks are amusing and good training for
dealing with similarly inconsiderate urban citizens.80
For most late-medieval observers, the element of force had to be some­
what greater than that envisioned by Alberti. The peasants could be con­
ceived as both necessary and bestial. This was linked to the imputed nature of
their service: reluctant but productive, given a certain level of coercion. They
could be held to resemble useful rather than threatening animals. A proverb
held that a rustic was like an ox, the only difference being that he lacked
horns.81 But as with such domesticated beasts as oxen, he could not be relied
on to labor of his own volition, but rather required discipline. Another
proverb likened the rustic, the ass, and the nut, all of which must be struck in
order to produce anything.82 A Latin rhyming proverb states that rustics are
best when weeping, worst when laughing.83 Similarly, a French proverb holds
that if you "anoint" a vilain (i.e., treat him with kindness) he will sting (or
prick) you; sting him and he will behave well.84
In these examples, the rustic is like an animal that only responds to goad­
ing: ornery but ultimately tractable and useful. A more hostile view sees them
as only barely tamed. According to the Catalan Franciscan Francese Eixime­
nis, servile peasants are naturally inclined to evil and, like cruel and savage
beasts, must be beaten and starved into submission.85 Ruprecht von Freising's
Preisinger Rechtsbuch (compiled in 1328) allowed lords to flog their peasants as
long as the peasant did not die within a day of administration of this punish­
ment (thus anything short of deliberate flogging to death was licit). This de­
7
gree �f power and its limitation was not especially unusual (it is ultimat Iy
Contempt and Subjugation 149
derived from Exodus 21:20-21), but the rationale given by the lawbook is sig­
nificant: "masters must keep them in fear or they'll never work.'' 86
Exploitative discipline to be sure: a popular riddle asks "what do peasants
most earnestly pray for?" The answer is: for the lords to have plenty of fine
horses, for otherwise the lords will ride the peasants instead.87 Beside such
confidence in the peasants' haplessness must be set other images of rural in-
, surrections in which the peasants were depicted as wild and dangerous beasts.
Perhaps they had once been properly domesticated, but now they have run
wild.
In the fifteenth century the Swiss epitomized impudent and rebellious rustics,
and it was frequently argued that their success could have been prevented had
they been supervised more harshly. A poem from the time of Appenzell's re­
volt against the jurisdiction of Saint Gall (1400-1404) says that one must
"bleed" the peasants occasionally to get more work out of them.88 The hu­
morist Heinrich Behel, in a poem written under the pseudonym Heintz von
Bechwinden in 1499, recommended that the rebellious Swiss peasants be
punished, just as a willow tree is trimmed with"a knife to be made to produce
more.89 Peasants are impudent because they get to keep too much money.
Hemmerli, writing during the Toggenburg War between Zurich and the rural
cantons, proposed that to tame the arrogance of the rustics it would be best
to destroy their farms every fifty years or so.90
The productive as opposed to bestial vilain is not so drastically physically dis­
torted as the solitary rustic of the French romance, but posture, dress, and
diet mark out and emphasize his subordination. A song written at the time of
the Flemish peasant uprising of 1323-28 mocks the "Karls" for their long
beards, torn clothes, tattered shoes, and peculiar hats. According to the cho­
rus, curdled milk, bread, and cheese are their diet; anything more would dull
their wits. All the peasant really needs is a thick slice of rye bread to hold as
he heads for the plough. His raggedly dressed wife, her mouth full of fibers,
works her distaff until it's time to prepare the supper porridge. The poem
ends, "We shall know how to punish the Karls . . . -..ye shall drag them to exe­
cution, we shall hang them, they must again submit to the yoke." 91 Once
they have been subdued, they will return to their wretched but useful labor.
John Gower, in the Mirour de l'omme, contrasts the obedient rustics of
past times, who were content with a diet of coarse bread, milk, and cheese,
with the greedy and disloyal rabble of his own time.92 A common story was
told of a woman married to a wealthy peasant who found that her husband
complained when she served him delicacies. Her mother advised her to give
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 150
him beans and peas with soaked bread, which she did, whereupon her hus­
band cheered up and ceased his carping.93 In one of the German poems at­
tributed to Neidhart, the peasant Berewolf, once the cynosure of the village
lasses, marries the hectoring Trute and has to look forward not only to a life
of harsh labor but to a diet of horseradish and cabbage.94 Peasants in Ger­
many and the Low Countries were commonly referred to as "turnip-eaters,"
while those of France were sometimes typified as "pea-eaters. "95
Peasants were supposed to be capable of (and even to require) large
amounts of the unpleasant food appropriate to their station. While the knight
managed to do battle on a light, elegant diet of game, fish, and exotic birds
(swans, peacocks), rustic feasts were depicted as occasions for drunkenness
and the consumption of immense quantities of crude provender.96
All these traits-ugliness, hairiness, bizarre or ragged clothing, coarse
food-are essential characteristics of the peasant but in some sense acquired
rather than the product of an entirely different species. The peasant's customs
and instincts are certainly intrinsically base, but these characteristics are the
result of neglect or habit, of debasement rather than "biological" difference.
Stupidity and Excrement
The peasant as stupid and his association with excrement (both animal and
human) are two recurrent traits that indeed seem to mark off the peasant as
possessed of a gross, inferior nature. Peasants were supposed to be stupid, an
enduring image of the countryman common across boundaries and time.
True, habit and habitat were thought to encourage and bring out this doltish­
ness (Marx's "lunacy of rural life"). The peasant might not be biologically in­
ferior in mind at the moment of birth, but his essential nature was credulous,
slow, and dull-witted.
The fabliaux often depict rustics who are tricked and cuckolded. They arb
not the only victims, of course, but with townsmen or nobles it is greed, old
age, or amorous fatuity that interferes with an otherwise natural sagacity (as
with the elderly knight Januarie in Chaucer's "Merchant's Tale"), while the
peasant is simply dumb in the first place. Peasants are portrayed as easy vic­
tims for all manner of swindlers.97 Even when innocence is rewarded, it is a
foolish innocence. In Jean Bodel's "Brunain, la vache au prestre," a peasant
couple, taking literally the words of the Gospel from a sermon that God will
repay twofold what is given in His name, donate their cow named "Blerain''
to the priest. Pleased with this acquisition, the priest puts Blerain with his own
animal, "Brunain," but Blerain leads her new companion from the priest's pas-
Contempt and Subjugation 151
ture back to the peasants, who indeed obtain thereby two beasts for one. Their
simplicity is rewarded, but the animal is, in effect, smarter than its masters.98
In the later Neidhart material, the knight becomes a trickster who vic­
timizes the extraordinarily credulous villagers.99 He fools them into covering
themselves with a malodorous salve, or drops them into a pit of manure. Dis­
guised as a peddler, Neidhart leaves a basket of carved images of the villagers,
and then, before the duke of Austria, denies having anything to do with what
has the look of spell-casting. The villagers are fined by the duke for their
"false" complaint. ,In the Brautschwank Neidhart poses as a bride for one of
the boorish peasants, who is so entranced by love that even on the wedding
night he fails to realize the deceit. Neidhart steals the customary gift to the
bride (the Morgengabe) and departs.
Francese Eiximenis tells a story about peasant stupidity in connection
with Saint Bonaventura, who was reputed to have come from extremely
humble origins (his father was, in fact, a doctor). According to Eiximenis,
Bonaventura returned to his native village in the north of Italy after he had
achieved fame for his sanctity, learning, and high office. At first he was
greeted cordially by the villagers, but their attitude changed as the rumor
spread that Bonaventura owed his intelligence to diabolical practices that had
sucked out all the intellect of his fellow villagers and gathered it for his use
and profit. This explained not only Bonaventura's extraordinary success but
also the villagers' witlessness. 100
Keeping animals and attempting to fertilize his fields, the peasant could
be easily associated with manure and various other forms of animal waste,
which served as an emblem of his distance from civilization. Neidhart's ha­
tred of the peasants begins with a rustic prank in which symbols of chivalric
delicacy collide with peasant baseness. In a Schwanklied that goes under Neid­
hart's name, and in the earliest surviving secular drama of the Middle Ages,
the knight proposes a contest to the court of the duchess of Bavaria to find
, the first violet of spring. He himself finds the flower, and after marking the
spot with his cap, runs off happily to alert his companions. But the discovery
has been observed by a "filthy peasant" who lifts the hat, defecates onto the
violet, and then carefully replaces the cap. Neidhart returns with the duchess,
the court, and musicians to celebrate his victory, only to be disgraced when
the cap is ceremoniously lifted to the sound of a trumpet fanfare. Tlie vil­
lagers then take the turd-encrusted violet, hoist it on a pole, and dance
around it. But Neidhart has his revenge, cutting off the left legs of no fewer
than 32 of the dancers. 101
The Violet Prank (Veilchenschwank) would be the most popular Neidhart
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 152
9. A scene from Neidhart's scatological misadventure, the "Violet Prank"
(Veilchenschwank). Mural painted between 1360 and 1380, from the "Zurn Grund­
stein" house, Winterthur, Switzerland. Reprinted by permission of the Stadtbiblio­
thek Winterthur.
theme of the late Middle Ages and beyond. 102 Sometime before 1330, the mo­
ment of Neidhart's humiliation was painted on the wall of a patrician drink­
ing hall in the town of Diessenhofen, on the Rhine in what is now the Swiss
canton of Thurgau. The mural, now destroyed (a paper copy is in Zurich),
showed Neidhart with the musicians while the duchess points to something
now effaced. An onlooker delicately holds his nose. The early date of the
mural shows the popularity of the Veilchenschwank even before the first Neid­
hart play appeared in 1350. 103
Another depiction of the "Violet Prank" dating from between 1360 and
1380, adorned the house "Zurn Grundstein" in Winterthur (Fig. 9). At the
castle of Trautson in the Tyrol, a series of Neidhart pranks, including the
Veilchen episode, was painted in the mid-fifteenth century. 104 In 1979, an­
other cycle of Neidhart murals dating from about 1400 (including the Veil­
chenschwank, mirror theft, and peasant brawl) was discovered at a house in
Vienna. 105
I have already mentioned the Italian poem that attributed the origins of
the vilain to the colossal fart of a barnyard animal. In accord with these cir­
cumstances, the vilain himself was credited with an extraordinary proclivity
Contempt and Subjugation 153
for flatulence. Rutebeuf 's fabliaux, "Le pet au vilain," purports to explain
why rustics are admitted neither to heaven nor to hell. There is no place in
heaven for vilains, for they hate priests and are devoid of charity. Formerly,
demons routinely awaited the separation of rustic souls from their bodies. In
accord with this office, a demon attended a certain dying peasant's bedside
with a sack. The soul exited not from the mouth (as with those of higher es­
tate) but from the rear. Shortly before dying, the peasant had eaten a meal of
beef seasoned with garlic. As he expired and his soul was put in the sack, the
rustic broke a final, powerful wind. So powerful, in fact, that when the soul
was released in hell, the unpleasant smell was enough to compel its expulsion.
Henceforth no rustics would be allowed in hell, and so Rut�beuf. advises
them to sing with the frogs after death or seek the realm of excrement, the
territory of Audigier (on which see below). 106
The peasant is surrounded by excrement and dirt, symbols of unpleasant
natural productivity and of the uncontrollable body. In common with other
examples of the polymorphous body, the obsessive scatology may indicate
not just the hostile regard of the superior orders but some element of the car­
nivalesque culture of the lower classes themselves. Excretion may also be akin
to the making of fiction, a comical self-reference in the fabliau genre to the
peculiar art of transforming the world into verse. 107 But the scatological im­
age of the rustic shows him, as it were, in his native element and represents a
statement about his nature, condition, and relation to the rest of the world.
In the fabliau "Le vilain asnier," a rustic leading two asses loaded with ma­
nure through the crowded streets of Montpellier faints dead away, overcome
by the unaccustomed sweet aromas of the spice market. He seems to be dead
(and is blocking traffic), but is revived when a clever passer-by holds a pellet
of dung under the peasant's nose. Brought back to life by the familiar odor,
the peasant goes on his way completely restored. 108
The rustic's natural setting consists not only of animal manure but of his
own excrement. In a fabliau with the down-to-earth title "La crote" (The
turd), a peasant and his wife play a semierotic game that involves tricking
each other into eating feces. 109 Another story combines the theme of stupid­
ity with defecation. In "Jouglet," the jongleur (poet or minstrel) is entrusted
with educating a peasant named Robin in preparation for his marriage. His
advice is to eat lots of green apples and to avoid defecating on his wedding
day. The result is a frenzied production of excrement all over the house and
its contents, even in the case holding the minstrel's viol. 110 The uncontrollable
body is here indicated not by malformation but by a foolishly self-inflicted
gastrointestinal crisis.
The mock epic Audigier tells the story of the prince of a "soft kingdom"
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 154
of the intestine who courts a rustic girl. In its outline the piece follows a con­
ventional story of war, marriage, and revenge, but its gastroenterological lo­
cation is unforgettable. The dower consists of dog turds, the wedding meal is
a stew with chicken droppings, the minstrels are paid with goat turds.111
What has been described above is a vocabulary of terms of subordination, a
set of conventional representations of use to medieval comic and didactic
writers about the peasantry. In most texts, various images are combined. Thus
in 14 of the surviving 124 fifteenth-century Nuremberg Carnival plays (Fdst­
nachtspiele), peasants are described in by-now familiar terms as obscene, scat­
ological, gluttonous, and rowdy.112 They are ludicrously unsuccessful in their
wooing and susceptible to every sort of (usually self-inflicted) mishap. In a
further 25 such plays, there are characters described simply as "fools," but
they are dearly rustic fools or have comical rural names, such as "Heinz
Molkenfass" (cheese-eater).113 These plays, designed for the inverted social
world of Carnival, entertained townspeople for the peasant was an emblem
of the comically base. The costume of peasants was second only to devil's out­
fits in popularity during Carnival celebrations.114
A number of the themes concerning the wtckedness and lowliness of rus­
tics are also summarized conveniently in a fifteenth-century poem of mixed
Italian and Latin contained within a medical treatise.115 The "Life of the Infi­
del, Wicked, and Rustic Villeins" begins by rejoicing at the vexations afflict­
ing the peasants. They are penniless, go about in bare feet, eat grass mixed
with turds, and keep sickly livestock.116 Th�y subsist on garlic, onions, roots,
and vegetables.117 They labor and suffer while others receive the benefits of
what they produce. They are stupid and bestial, infidels, "worse than Jews."118
Their appearance provokes laughter. They are liars and robbers, rightly made
to suffer in purgation for their wickedness.119 The poem ends with a play on
several Latin liturgical tags: "Servi servorum, Ass of Asses, God curse you for
ever and ever, Amen. From the intrigues of the devil, the lordship of the
villein, and the furor of the rustics release us O Lord."120
The rustic is thus wicked, bestial, and tamed only by coercion. But he is
generally (although not always) regarded as being useful, even if coercion is
required. In hostile texts such as the "Life of the Infidel, Wicked, and Rustic
Villeins/' they still labor while others profit. The late-medieval (or perhaps
sixteenth-century) Italian ''Alphabet Against the Villani" opens with the state­
ment that the perfidious, wicked, and ungrateful rustic is destined to labor.121
There follows another catalogue of evil characteristics, especially dishonesty.
The degraded condition of the rustic was demonstrated by an essential
Contempt and Subjugation 155
subhumanity, deformity, resemblance to animals, or other attributes setting
him apart from civilization. In other cases, his separation from the fully hu­
man is the result of character, or baseness that does not necessarily render
him completely unhuman. We have distinguished between the savage, soli­
tary rustic and the more docile, productive peasant, but in both cases a de­
based character, a malformed (if powerful) body, and a subhuman nature
demonstrate that subjugation is appropriate.
The vilain in literature thus amounted to more than a conventional sign
for base behavior. He was an exemplum a contrario but not simply for the pur­
pose of instruction by reverse example or to parody high-flown genres. Rus­
ticity was not simply a vehicle to teac;h manners or displace and transgress the
heroic. The convenience of stereotypical images is that they conform to per­
ceptions and reinforce them. The assumption of a background of peasant
filthiness or stupidity made it possible to build didactic and comical tropes
on these themes.
At the same time it won't do to describe the rustic as simply the target of
a hegemonic discourse of domination by which he is represented as "Other."
Along with embodying certain negative qualities, the peasant was productive,
important, necessary. He inhabited a world apart but could not· be serenely
or consistently regarded as a subhuman Other, because his lowliness was use­
ful, more so than the supposed alien character of Jews, Saracens, or "mon­
strous races." There was a tension between regarding the peasant as excluded
from human society and as necessary for its survival.
A resolution of this tension was to see the negative qualities as signs of a
natural but domesticated lowliness. In a sense the entire discourse about the
filthy, wicked, or bestial peasantry is an extended commentary on the theory
of natural slavery, that some are fit by their nature for labor. They may fulfill
this function docilely, or they may require coercion. The peasant's physical
strength and intellectual debility may signal his aptitude for toil, as Aristotle
says,122 but such an explanation encounters certain problems with Christian
notions of equality, humanity, and the relation of this world to the next. To
the extent that the debasement of peasants was seen as violating their hu­
manity, by arguing their infidelity or essentially subordinate nature one could
begin to justify their status.
As we have seen, there were several other ways to deal with this problem:
to attribute the rustic's condition not to biological or acquired subordination
but to a hereditary taint, originating in an event such as Noah's curse against
his son Ham, or in an act of betrayal in more recent national history, such as
deserting Charlemagne. The advantage of these approaches was that they did
not require setting the peasants apart from humanity, but rather made them
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 156

heirs of a crime on the order of Adam's Fall and its consequences. In all such
constructions, however, the peasant might be regarded in some sense as "nat­
urally" debased, but insofar as he was productive, Christian, and not dwelling
Chapter' 7
in some far-off fantastic realm but in proximity to those he supported, his
condition remained a moral problem. Peasant Bodies, Male and Female

As has been shown, peasants were often depicted as filthy, subhuman, and
comical, the reverse of the civilized and courtly. In medieval literature, the vi­
lain was everything that the knight was not: lowly, servile, grossly materi�is­
tic, cowardly, malformed, and unfit for the service of love. Above all, the rus­
tic, more specifically the male rustic, represented gross materiality. Peasants
appeared in art and iconography as coarse and ill-favored. 1 Likened to do­
mestic animals or even (by means of images of filth and excrement) to the
land he tilled, the peasant was rendered as large, grotesque, and rather slug­
gish. He craved food, yawned, scratched himself, was partial to drink, and
enjoyed sleeping.
Given these contemptuous depictions, oriented as they are around a dis­
turbing physicality, one might expect the peasant to be portrayed as danger­
ous or as sexually threatening. Comical and frightening images readily coex­
ist, as demonstrated by durable stereotypes of African-Americans. Both dur­
ing and after the era of slavery, American blacks were simultaneously regarded
as amusing and childlike on the one hand and as dangerous, savage, and sex­
ually powerful on the other.2
In general, medieval peasants were not considered dangerous except in in­
surrections, when they formed a wild and murderous throng. The individual
rustic was undisciplined, to be sure. The carnivalesque embodiment identi­
fied by Mikhail Bakhtin exalted a grotesque, hyperbolic physicality and a
subversive disorder. 3 Lack of discretion also emblematized the lower orders.
As noted previously, Noah's cursed son Ham, progenitor of the unfree, earned
punishment for an undisciplined character that henceforth typified slaves. 4
None of this, however, presented a threat to the knightly class. Rustic
males appear in the French romances as grotesque but harmless. The herds­
man in Chretien's Yvain and the charcoal burner in Aucassin et Nicolette are
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 158
frightening in appearance but hardly intimidating in character. They resem­
ble the "wild man," a folkloric and literary figure who dwelled in the forest, a
debased, semihuman being.5 Like the wild man, they are timid and ungainly
rather than fi erce, with only crude weapons (such as clubs). The herdsman
encounte red by Calogrena nt is powe r ful enough to g rab his bulls by the
horns, causing them to tremble, but presents no threat to the knight, who is
in fact more worried about the bulls.6
In German literature the peasant men are le ss often rendered as mis­
shapen, and they are also more aggressive, prone to internecine violence. In
the poems of Neidhart and his later imitators, the male villagers kill and dis­
member e ach other in the course of celebrations that degenerate into comic
brawls. The peasants exemplify the unchivalric, here by reason of stupidity
rather than timidity. They quarrel over r idiculous p retexts, j ust as they dre ss
foppishly in ludicrous imitation of courtly gar b. They use swords, weapons
that are too dangerous for their reckle ss lack of control, and so commit may­
hem. In all this, however, they pose no danger to Neidhart, the knight-narra­
tor, whose only fear is that he will be accidentally caught in the midst of their
murderous rage.7
Only in exceptional contexts, therefore, was the peasant thought to be ca­
pable of violence toward his betters. S eigneurial accounts of late-medieval
peasant revolts did reiterate stories of torture, murder, and rape of nobles by
enraged rustics, but under normal circumstances peasants posed no physical,
military, or sexual threat.
How dangerous could the peasant be, defined as he was in contrast to the,
knight as unwarlike ? Chivalric prestige depended on militar y courage and
skill with an overlay of courtesy and amorous sensibility. The peasants, on the
other hand, were inept at war. Although sufficiently brutish to practice ';io­
lence on members of their own class, peasants were laughable as any sort of
military force (again apart from the exceptional occasion of mass rebellion).
Nor were peasant men regarded as posse ssing any particular sexual energy or
aggre ssivene ss. It was a lite rar y commonplace that rustic men are unfit for
love, not merely because they lacked the nece ssar y refinement but because
they were too materialistic. Their concerns were land, work, money, all ren­
dering them unable to exper ience the yearning that afflicts the brave and
well-born.
Valor and skill at love were joined in the image of knighthood. Both love
and chivalry required an elaborate set of rule s b ut also a spiritual desire that
raised the knight above an intere st in mere physical comfort. Converse ly, the
peasant not only lacked the ability to master the complex rituals of love and
Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 159
war but wallowed in an innate, gross embodiment and materiality.
The de­
sire for safety, a reluctance to risk life for honor, made the peasant a
ludicrous
figure in any military context. He was suited for the plow, not the sword,
and
driven more by appetite than honor. In the fabliau "Berengier au lone
Cul/
the lowborn "knight" prefers tarts and baked custards to such unsatisfacto
ry
intangibles as fame or chivalry.8
The rustic is also unlikely to experience more than a torpid sexual de sir
e.
He is certainly not about to engage in any sacrifice or quest for its sak
e. In
several Old French pastourelles a rustic girl laments that she is saddled with
a
husband who is dull or who thinks only of money.9 A stor in Bocc
y a ccio's
Decameron about the gardener of a convent who disports himself with its in­
mate s begins by citing the common belief that "spade and mattock
and
coarse victuals and hard living do altogether purge away carnal appetite s
from
the tillers of the earth." This opinion attribute s to r ural laborers both dull
ed
wit and feeble sexual appetite, notions that the career of the crafty and se
xu­
ally athletic gardener superficially disprove s but actually reinforce s precis
ely
because he is exceptional.10
Lumbering, misshapen, and dull, peasants were, as a rule, supposed to
be
incapable of the passionate spiritual energy that drives chivalric male d
e sire.
In this chapter I want to explore this curious asexual materiality of the
male
peasant and to de scribe the rather different image of the female peasant, who
could be physically alluring, even witty.
It was both a learned and a popular convention in the Middle Age s tha
t
women repre sented a principle of matter, generation, and embodiment'.
Med­
ical, the ological, and literary orthodoxy made women the vehicles of a
nat­
ural, biological force complementing or opposing
a spiritual, intellectual male
p rinciple.11 The emblem of embodiment in medieval condemnations
of
women was their sexuality. Women were regarded as sexually insatiable
and
as temptations to male sinfulne ss.12 In accord with Gale�, the medical school
of Salerno taught that women were more lustful than men, an opinion th
at
was_ sometime s challenged but remained dominant thro ughout the Middl
e
Ages.13
Stereotype s of peasant men in some sense resembled those attributed to
women generally, in that the male peasant, too, represented embodime
nt.
But the image of the male differed in portraying his body as oriented arou
nd
the dige stive system and as devoid of the sexual and procreative energy
at­
tributed to women. Peasant women, although sharing the supposedly com­
mon traits of all peasants, did not share the image of gross materiality associ­
ated with their male counterparts.
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 160 Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 161

husband returns unexpectedly. With a pretense of alarm, she exclaims that

Ineptitude at Love her husband looks as if he is dying. When the priest arrives on the scene, she
convinces her �usband that he is in fact dead. The amorous _couple disport
Peasant men might be affected by a crude form of desire but were thought to
themselves, havmg assured the hapless vilain that since he is now dead there
be devoid of amorous and certainly of chivalric yearning. In a Spanish
is nothing he can do to stop them. Lying on a straw pallet, the foolish hus­
eclogue written at the end of the Middle Ages by Juan del Encina, the alle­
band resignedly accepts this and closes his eyes.20
gorical figure of Love punishes the shepherd Pelayo by making him become
In a fobliau by Garin, another priest looks through the keyhole of a rustic
painfully enraptured with the ugly peasant girl Marinella.14 A passing squire,
house and sees a vilain having dinner with his pretty wife. The priest rushes
informed of Pelayo's malady, expresses incredulity at the idea of a rustic suf­
in, denouncing them for fornication. The bewildered husband protests that
fering amorous pangs. Juan del Encina wrote at the beginning of the revival
they were simply having a meal. The priest asserts that the keyhole must be
of the ancient pastorale. During the Spanish "Golden Age," lovesick shep­
enchanted as it looks as if those innocently dining at the table are engaged in
herds and other amorous villanos-would litter the landscape, but the medieval
sexual play. The priest invites the peasant to see for himsel£ The rustic con­
opinion was that only the well-born can feel the sweet pain of love.
firms thi� phenomenon as he views the priest and his wife enjoying each
That peasants love in the manner of beasts was a medieval commonplace. _
other while they assure him that they are merely sitting at the table.21
A well-known passage from the handbook of love by Andreas Capellanus
There are several factors that contribute to the vilain's lack of skill at love.
states that peasants are not servants of love but are merely urged to it by na­
His constitution and plodding stupidity fit him for toil, while his nature
ture in the manner of horses or mules.15 A thirteenth-century treatise states
makes him _prefer safety and dull material concerns to the risk and thrill of
that peasants love as beasts do, with neither courtesy nor goodness. The au­
love and war. Such ignorance and lack of interest in love fit the hierarchical
thor likens rustic lovemaking to "wildness" (rage), an animal instinct more
medica� and ethic� theories of desire. Knights were thought to be peculiarly
pathetic than threatening.16
susceptible to the sickness of love, a spiritual rather than purely bodily disor­
Peasants' sexual desire was either inept or unorthodox. An engraving by
der. The Viaticum, a Latin translation of an Arab book of medical advice for
Cornelis Massys, Market Peasants in a Brothel (ca. 1540), comically depicts
travelers, included a diagnosis and treatment for lovesickness.22 Twelfth-cen­
prostitutes fleecing peasants who had become temporarily affluent through
tury Latin treatises based on this popular work identified lovesickness as a pe­
the sale of their produce.17 Within the print is a picture on the wall showing a
culiarly aristocratic affliction.23 In a gloss to the Viaticum by Gerard de Berry,
peasant sitting on a pile of eggs; under the picture is the legend "It is a sorry
love was joined to nobility by an etymological contortion. In keeping with es­
house where the hen crows and not the rooster." The lecherous peasants at
tablished medical learning (including the Viaticum), Gerard referred to "the
the brothel resemble the generality of male rustics who allow themselves to
love that is called heros" (derived from eros) as a type of mental disorder.
be dominated by their wives. Here the peasant is not immune to lust, but. he
Cobbling together eros, heros (hero) and hems (noble), Gerard remarked that
cuts a figure more ludicrous than rakish.
nobles are most likely to succumb to the disease, a susceptibility encouraged
In the course of his diatribe against the Swiss, Felix Hemmerli theorized
by their leisure and wealth.24
that because Swiss men tended and milked animals, performing what is prop­
Even if the peasant is not biologically incapable of love, his manner of life
erly women's work, they were perhaps inclined to copulate with their cattle.18
makes him ill-equipped for love's demands. Leisure is the prerequisite for love.
Their masculinity is put in doubt and their supposed proclivity to unnatural
Idleness (f!is�use) is the (female) allegorical gatekeeper of the enclosed garden
vice is mocked.
at th� begmmng o� Le Roman de la Rose. 25 Hard work, which defines the peas­
Rustic couples might occasionally be portrayed in the French fobliaux as
ant, 1s not conducive to the cultivation and refinement of amorous sentiment.
enjoying what John Baldwin calls "robust, cheerful, marital sexuality,"19 but
After likening peasants' desire to that of beasts, Andreas Capellanus concludes
more often the rustic man, among whose most prominent characteristics was
that toil with the plow and hoe is the sole "consolation'' of these unfortunates.
stupidity, was rendered as the ridiculous victim of his wife's adultery. In afob­
It would be an error to instruct them in love's mysteries since they would then
liau by Jean Bodel, the wife of an ugly, disagreeable, and foolish vilain plans
abandon the fields, to the detripient of all society (invoking the theme of the
to entertain her lover, the parish priest, but shortly before the rendezvous her
plodding, usefully productive peasant).26 Rustics were supposed to work, and
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasauts 162
knights were supposed to fight and to love. The practice of love r�qu!red valor
and a degree of self-sacrifice, a combination of pleasure and depnvanon, char­
acteristic noble attributes neither of which applied to male rustics. Knights
should disdain comfort and be driven by the defense of honor and amorous
passion. Peasants were immune to the disease of love, for they lacked both
honor and the susceptibility to higher forms of spiritual suffering.
The clergy form something of a case apart. They were regarded as pecu­
liarly given over to lust, their inordinate sexual desire amounting to a more
urgent and less praiseworthy passion than that of the nobility. Among 50 fob­
liaux examined by Baldwin, 23 involve lustful clerics whose objects of desire,
as seen in the examples mentioned above, are often peasant wives.27
The clerical members of the pilgrim company in Chaucer's Ca_nterbury
Tales exhibit less controllable, more sinister desires than does the young
squire. A passage in the Death Dance, probably by Hans Hesse, published in
1490, parodies the scheme of the Three Orders by having the devil address
the folly of each estate: he says to the priest, "tu fornicator"; to the knight, "tu
praedor" (robber); and to the rustic, "tuque lecator," meaning "glutton" in
this context.28
Even in literary genres that depict the peasant as more violent than hap-
less, notably the Neidhart and Neidhart-related poems, the peasa�t �en are
not suited for even an unrefined form of love. The men of the village of
Reuental ("Valley of Grief ") are violent and boorish rather than timid and
physically grotesque as in the French tradition.29 Within their own world they
are certainly more assertive than the pathetic lowborn husbands of the fob­
liau. In the entire Neidhart corpus (and indeed in almost all the voluminous
German antipeasant satirical texts), the peasants do not appear engaged in
productive labor.-30 Unlike their French counterparts, therefore, they do have
the idleness necessary for the pursuit of love. In fact they seem to have the
economic wherewithal to sport foppish and absurd clothes and inappropriatf
weapons. These are not placid, dutiful rustics but rather violent, lazy, pre­
sumptuous, and, above all, boorish ones. It is their uncouth character that
makes them ridiculous and absurd as lovers rather than poverty, work, or un­
prepossessing physique.
The unsuitability of the men of Reuental for love is manifested by their
rough treatment of the village women. In the so-called Winter Songs, the vil­
lage fete features dancing followed by an inevitable fight. During the dance
the girls are manhandled by their partners, who step on their clothes, fondle
them, and steal their adornments.31 In 12 of the 36 Winter Songs, a mirror be­
longing to Vriderun, the peasant lass for whom Neidhart longs, is stolen by
the loutish Engelmar, Neidhart's rustic rival.
Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 163
The comic art of the Neidhart poems is such that the knight himself is
sometimes pathetically unsuccessful at love. He is misplaced in this remote
village, and:his refined longings, appropriate to the habits of renunciatory
longing in the Minnesang, are wasted even when he is admired. Although he
is the object of the village maidens' ambitions in the Summer Songs, Neid­
hart displays a pathetic lassitude or impotent rage in the Winter Songs. The
mirror theft is avenged only by the destructive brawling of the peasants them­
selves. Neidhart, while lamenting the theft in exaggerated terms ( ultimately
blaming it for the general decline of chivalry)32 is helpless to do anything
about it except to rejoice from a safe distance as the rustics proceed to kill and
maim each other in the fight that ensues.33
The eriginal Neidhart cuts a poor figure, but this is the result of his own
misfortune and lack of decisiveness, not the work of his boorish rivals. In the
late-medieval Neidhartschwanke, the knight has been transformed into an ac­
complished and sadistic trickster. His archrival is still Engelmar, but the rea­
son for their enmity is the Violet Prank, and the female villagers have
dropped out of the story. By this time, the peasants are ignorant, credulous,
and helpless before the pranks of the clever knight. They conform more
closely to the general European image of the hapless rustic, but love is no
longer at issue.
Rustic Women
Having stated that peasants experience desire in the fashion of beasts and are
fit for labor rather than love, Andreas Capellanus, in his discourse on love,
grudgingly admits that knights might possibly find peasant girls alluring.
In such an event, seduction ought to be undertaken by force, preceded by a
bit of flattery perhaps, but certainly without any elaborate courtesy.34 Even
more dismissively, Juan Ruiz, archpriest of Hita, the Castilian author of the
fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor, has the wise counselor Don Amor re­
mark that peasant women are too stupid to know anything about love.35
Yet there was a distinction between peasant men and peasant women.
The former were at best awkward and slow, and more often misshapen and
grotesque. The females (especially when young) were comely enough to be
the objects of rather predatory seduction. A mock catechism directed against
the rustics (preserved in several late-medieval manuscripts in company with
the previously mentioned comic "declension of rusticus') includes the prayer:
"God, thou who hast sown perpetual discord between lechers and rustics,
give to us the use of their wives and daughters and allow us to rejoice in their
[the male rustics'] death."36 Chaucer's Miller depicts the attractive Alison as a
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 164
peasant, notwithstanding her patina of urban sophistication. Although she
tends dairy cattle, she is fair: fit for a lord to bring to his bed, or for a yeoman
to wed.37
In the Neidhart poems, the village maidens are engaging, if not very dig­
nified. Sharp and eager, they are altogether inappropriate if the standard is the
remote aristocratic female, but they are desirable. Neidhart is foolish not be­
cause the girls lack charm but because he makes the mistake against which
Andreas had cautioned, that is, ludicrously applying a language of longing to
a situation that calls for more forthright lechery. Even in the ribald poem
"Der Wengling" (The prick), a species of pastourelle by an imitator ofNeid­
hart, the girl, although stupid ("dy tume"), is nevertheless a perfectly credible
object of lust.38
The French and Provern;al pastourelle, narrated by a knight or cleric who
encounters a rustic peasant girl or shepherdess, may be considered a poetic
gloss on Andreas Capellanus's advice on how to deal with peasant women.39
The pastourelle is a fantasy based on desire sharpened by social subordina­
tion, "the eroticism of inequality." 40 The wellborn narrator, riding through
the countryside in springtime, comes across a young rustic girl who is alone.
They banter, and he attempts to win her by gifts and flattery. She rejects his
advances, and several possible scenarios ensue: she continues to repulse him,
he is driven off by her peasant companions, he convinces her, or he rapes her.
Regardless of the "plot," the tone is lyrical and lighthearted. Although de­
scended from the classical pastorale and eclogue, the medieval pastourelle pre­
sents a sharp social contrast between interlocutors and a more combative at­
mosphere than that of the Theocritan or Virgilian idyll.
The pastourelle is something of a vacation from the fatiguing courtship
rituals undertaken by knights in the romances. That the suitor is noble while
the object of his desires is a rustic might render the dalliance either insignifi­
cant in the chivalric scheme of things (as Gaston Paris, inventor of the term
"courtly love," believed), or a satire of social class (perhaps by clerics against
knights, as W. T. H. Jackson asserts).41 The Neidhart poems also make use of
the socially inappropriate juxtaposition of knight and peasant girl, but the
knight lives in the village, and so his encounters are not the casual, un­
planned opportunities of the pastourelle. Neidhart's melancholy contrasts
with what William Paden has called the jouissance of the pastourelle.42 Both
the German and the French poems make fun of the ennobling renunciatory
tone of courtly conventions by portraying sexual desire as undignified,
whether quickly fulfilled or comically thwarted.
Mocking the customary deference of the knight to his lady, the pas­
tourelle proposes rapidity and coercion. Not only is it appropriate for knights
Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 165
to take peasant girls by force, but that is what the victims themselves enjoy. In
twelve of t�e Old French pastourelles, the shepherdess's initial reluctance
turns to sighs of pleasure after she has been raped.43 While only eighteen per­
cent of the pastourelles, according to Kathryn Gravdal's calculation, involve
an actual sexual assault, the acceptability of rape influences the entire genre.
Taunting, or a pretense of resistance followed by eager consent, establishes
the unreliable coyness of the shepherdess, legitimating rape by turning it into
a game.44 The "game of rape" -the lighthearted presentation of an assault on
a resilient and compliant victim-asserted that women are avid, that their
protestations to the contrary are insincere, and thus that the rituals ofchival­
ric courtship are at least faintly ridiculous.
The pastourelles are at once lyrical and humorous; they are about rape
andjouissance, the two not really distinct in the eyes of the authors. Such po­
ems of amorous social transgression are celebrations of pliable women who
are appealing, pert, and resilient. A certain allure is evoked by the spring
landscape, the beauty of the girl, and the pleasure of an opportunity ex­
ploited. The poems are intended to show amusing erotic dalliances, but also
parody refined sensibility by mixing up as well as fortifying social boundaries
and compressing what might take thousands of lines in a serious love poem
into a few brief verses.
The action of the pastourelle speeds along by comparison to the glacial
progress of nobles' love. Meeting, compliments, offers of gifts, and sexual as­
sault take place within an imagined time frame to be reckoned in minutes. In
"A l' entrant del tanz salvage," by the thirteenth-century French poet Hue de
Saint-Quentin, the clerical narrator encounters a girl with a flock of goats,
asks her name, and then tells her to kiss him and become his sweetheart, of­
fering an alms-purse or ho�d. He then proceeds to assault her, reporting the
girl's reaction laconically: "I never heard such a fuss." After he "plays the game
for her" three times, she assures him, "this is a pleasing tune," and quite con­
tentedly returns to her goats.45
In an anonymous pastourelle of the early thirteenth century, a cleric of­
fers a tunic, smock, clasp, and belt to a shepherdess who has lost her cloak.
She first threatens to hit him, but when he asks for marriage, she agrees. After
their embrace, she cries out:
May any woman who refuses
Such sport and such joy
Be put to shame by God.
The narrator then boasts that he has fooled her, for he has no intention of
marrying her. But she is unperturbed. After all, she has been deflowered by
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 166
the handsomest man in the empire, and as a sporting gesture, she gives him a
parting counter-gift of a collar dasp.46
In some examples of the pastourelle, the young woman is more thor­
oughly humiliated, an addition to the narrator's jouissance. In "Quant voi
nee," another anonymous French poem of the thirteenth century, the shep­
herdess tries vainly to summon the male shepherds who should have pro­
tected her. After flattering her, the knight seizes the girl, enjoying her shame,
and has his way with her. As he mounts his palfrey, he offers to take her with
him. Clinging to a semblance of honor, she refuses unless he will marry her.
He commends her to God and leaves her disheveled before the young men
who have belatedly shown up (among them the rustic boyfriend Robin).47
There is a triangular relationship among the shepherdess, the knight, and
the inept shepherd Robin in which the woman may be thought of as an object
of exchange and competition between the two males. Viewed from the knight's
vantage point, the eroticism of inequality here encompasses not only an attrac­
tive dalliance (the vacation from the ceremonies of the court) but an agreeable
contest humiliating to the comical rustic males.48 Not a very difficult contest,
to be sure, but then again hunting and similar recreations did not require fair
odds or great difficulty of execution on every occasion to be enjoyable.
It takes only a slight variation for the male rather than female rustic to be
the principal object of humiliation. In the Jeu de Robin et Marion, a play with
a pastourelle plot written circa 1300 by Adam de la Halle, the knight attempts
to win Marion first with words, then with force, but she manages to free her­
self from his dutches. In this instance Robin arrives in time but is too fright­
ened to intervene. Along with his companions, Robin timidly observes the
struggle from behind some trees.49 The cowardice of the male rustic, a vener­
able theme, is accentuated by the resourcefulness of the shepherdess. The
male rustic is cowardly while the female is plucky; the male misshapen and
the female winsome. The intention of the pastourelle is comic, but the peas­
ant lass is not in herself an absurd figure. Within the lexicon of male desire
she is a physically credible entry. What would be ridiculous would be for the
knight to regard her with the same hesitant submissiveness that surrounds the
higher forms of love. The poems of Neidhart play with precisely this absur­
dity. Even here, although the knight's longings are foolish, in purely physical
terms the village girls are reasonable objects of yearning.
Inverting the Pastourelle
The insincerity of female claims to honor and the knight or cleric's high­
handedness do not mean, therefore, that the young woman is always helpless
Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 167
or that the narrator always conquers. The parody of noble courtship is tuned
to a new key by the ability of the girl to answer the knight's false courtesy
with witty derision and to turn the game around. An early pastourelle by the
Occitan poet Marcabru shows a series of attempts at flattery, all of them con­
temptuously rebuffed by the shepherdess. To the knight's affected solicitude
to protect her from the wind, she avers that she is cheerful and healthy; she
also declines his offer to keep her company while she guards her flocks. His
compliments on her manners and beauty are likewise rejected, for the
promise of his devotion is hardly sufficient recompense to tempt the shep­
herdess to surrender her virginity. The poem ends without a definitive resolu­
tion, but the shepherdess has the last word. 50
Often the girl is simply too smart to be taken in by flattery or attempted
intimidation. A poem by Simon d'Authie (fl. 1222-1232) ends with the shep­
herdess mocking the knight's unsuccessful efforts:
You have tried your best with me
But little have you won.
Many another have you wooed;
You didn't learn how here.
Your heart is not so constrained
As it seems by your words.
Some men kiss women and embrace them
Who don't love them at all. 51
The witty and articulate response of the rustic girl is such that some authori­
ties have argued that she is not really a rustic at all but rather a "sanitized"
fantasy object suitable for chivalric desire,52 or an aristocrat dressed up in
peasant garb. 53 The young woman is, however, attractive because of her social
subordination combined with innate physical beauty, a theme not altogether
unfamiliar to modern literature. She is firmly set in a rustic world with rustic
companions. The encounter is a social as well as a sexual trespass. Only with
the Renaissance pastorale does one find something more like a masque of Ar­
cadia, in which the shepherds are nobles in costumes. 54
In certain examples of the pastourelle, the knight not only is thwarted
but displays an unbecoming cowardice as he is chased away by the friends or
lover of his intended conquest, those who in other poems were so timid. The
knight is ludicrously frightened in Jocelin's "Quant j' o chantier l' aluete,"
declaring:
I would have no use for a doctor
If he had caught me that day,
The peasant with his great strength
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 168
Bent his crossbow and shot
With a bolt he nearly killed me­
And I mounted and fled.
But I can assure you
That I never had so great fear.55
The comic effect is heightened when the girl calls to him to return to her.
Not for all the gold in the empire, he recalls, would he have done so! In two
poems by Thibaut IV, count of Champagne (died 1253), the knight flees the
scene. One concludes with a sarcastic postscript by the shepherdess: "indeed,
knights are too brave." 56
Comic inversion is augmented when the woman becomes the aggressor.
Not only is the knight not brave, but he is the somewhat dazed victim of the
girl's forcefulness. In 'Tautre jour en un jardin," the knight initiates the dia­
logue with a pretty shepherdess in the usual fashion, but the poem concludes
with the knight futilely trying to escape: "In truth, she had her way with me,
stripped me naked/ Trampled and abused me, more than I can say." 57
The rustic girl of the pastourelle is sometimes shy, sometimes bold; often
she is forced (but ultimately willingly) to submit, while on other occasions
she escapes. Whatever her poetic attitude, she is always (until the fourteenth
century) attractive, even dazzling in appearance-blond, slender, and with a
fresh complexion (although sometimes deviating from the courtly ideal of
paleness by reason of her outdoor life). She is often very young: fifteen and a
half in one example, thirteen in another, and parvula non nubilis in a third.58
The peasant girl or shepherdess is thus not merely human but (within the
conventions of the era) desirable. Unlike the male rustic, she is not rendered
as grotesque, nor is she unskilled in the ways of love. If she is ignorant about
love, it is a charming innocence fully in accord with an essentially eager and
easily exploited sexuality. She is more clever than her awkward, boorish male
companions. Young male peasants may be more aggressive than those of ma­
ture age (and in the German Neidhart poems, they are very aggressive in­
deed), but they are fumbling and inept, whereas the young female rustics are
delightful in form and affect.
One should not mistake the articulate and witty responses of the shep­
herdess for genuine contestation, nor is the fact that she is pretty the mark of
a fully realized humanity. The pastourelle cannot be said to provide a voice
for its female victim merely because she is not always victimized. It is possible
to present females as talking back within the rules of a discourse written and
conceived by male authors, but of course the pastourelle is hardly subver­
sive.59 Her pleasing form differentiates the female from the male peasant, but
as a different sort of seigneurial object. It is the labor of the male peasant that
Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 169
is exploited, so that he can be rendered as a more or less tractable domestic
animal. The female peasant is· an object of sexual exploitation, so she is pre­
sented with a different sort of body than that of generic peasants.
Grotesque Female Rustics
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the difference between representa­
tions of male and those of female rustics diminished. For the first time, peas­
ant women were portrayed in shapes as unflattering and grotesque as were
their male counterparts. This is in part due to the development of a further
inversion or parodic level within the logic of the pastourelle. The usual brav­
ery of the knight having been overturned, it was in some sense logical to ex­
periment with an amusingly unattractive rustic girl. In an Occitan mock pas­
tourelle of 1320, "Mentre per una ribiera," the narrator sees a girl herding pigs
(rather than the canonical sheep). She is not only sexually voracious but wild,
ugly, fat, and "black as pitch."60
Not all ugliness, however, was rustic. The Loathly Lady of Chretien's
Perceval the grotesque lady Guote in Ulrich von Turheim's Rennewart, or Vil­
lon's decrepit prostitute "la belle Heaulmiere" are burlesques of the conven­
tions of female beauty.61 Moreover, "Mentre per una ribiera" would remain
exceptional within the corpus of the pastourelle. Even in the Neidhart poems
the village girls are reasonably pretty, even if they are more scheming and ma­
terialistic than their counterparts in the pastourelle.
Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor, a miscellany of anecdotes and observa­
tions written between 1330 and 1343, is the first work involving a series of
grotesque and comically ugly rustic women. Contained within it are a series
of serranillas (songs of the serranas, the girls of the mountains). These lyric
sections alternate with narrative in a verse style known as cuaderna via. The
setting, rules, and logic of the serranilla invert the conventions of the pas­
tourelle.62 We are in the barren and rugged landscape of the border of Castile
and La Mancha rather than the lush meadows of France. It is winter, not
spring. The narrator is timid, while the girl is repulsive and aggressive.
The narrator first encounters a shepherdess called La Chata (Snubnose),
who collects tolls from unfortunate travelers in the remote Sierra de
Guadarrama and boasts she can tie up men who are unable or unwilling to
pay. The hapless poet is hardly on the prowl for sexual gratification. By the
time he meets La Chata he is frozen, interested only in shelter and warmth.
Hoisting him on her shoulder, she carries him back to her lair. She is "hor­
rendous, wicked, and ugly," but hospitable (she plies the poet with rabbit,
partridges, veal, smoked cheese, and trout), and amorous. She orders him to
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 170
take off his clothes and suggests that they "wrestle together awhile" (luche­
mos un rato). 63
Next the narrator encounters Gadea de Riofrio, a "strong mountain girl"
who is at least sufficiently prepossessing for the narrator to greet and casually
threaten to have his way with if she does not give him directions. In reply, she
whacks him on the ear with her staff, but she then takes the shaken poet to
her hut, boisterously instructing him not to mind her little joke. Once again
he seems more interested in food than loveplay. Having dined, he abruptly
departs.64
Mengua Lloriente, the third mountain girl, is stupid and acquisitive. She
is strong (like the rustic in Yvain, she can tame bulls) but more civilized than
the others, for she can dance as well as wrestle. Alda, on the other hand, the
serrana of the fourth cuaderna via, is impossibly malformed, with immense
breasts, ribs protruding out of her black chest, her wet hands covered with
hair, her little finger bigger than the narrator's thumb.65
The strange savagery of the serranas, especially the grotesque Alda, differ­
entiates the poems of the Libro de buen amor from other parodies of the pas­
tourelle on the order of "Mentre per una ribiera." The serranas are not only
unattractive but powerful figures, with perhaps some antecedents in folkloric
representations of nature, such as the swaggering rustic women who guard
mountain passes in the popular villancicos serranos. 66 But the serranas, like
their counterparts in the German Schwank and French fabliau, are not quite
wild or completely unhuman. They have names (unlike the usually anony­
mous girls in pastourelles). They herd animals and produce food. Although
certainly forbidding, they are neither inarticulate nor mad. They possess the
putative rural characteristics of coarseness, aptitude for unpleasant labor, and
association with animals. These traits, formerly limited to male peasants, now
cut across gender.
The serranillas of the Libro de buen amor invert the pastourelle, amount­
ing to parodies of parodies.67 To the extent that the pastourelle makes fun of
high-minded courtship, it contains within its own logic the possibility for
further levels of reversal: the girl is no longer innocent but the sexual aggres­
sor, nor longer pliant but fierce, no longer winsome but abhorrent. The
knight now displays the characteristics of the shepherd girl of the pastourelle.
It is he who is seized and raped; he who is bribed by gifts. He comes also to
resemble the conventional image of the male peasant, his interest turned
more toward food and warmth than sexual gratification.
Later Castilian serranillas would go back and forth between lyrical praise
of a beautiful rustic lass (in the manner of the pastourelle) and a reassertion of
the barbarous mountain-girl image. The prevailing theme of the poems of
Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 171
Carvajales (written in the mid-fifteenth century) is the amorous knight
whose affections are roused by a socially dubious but physically appealing
woman, but two of his poems include frightful female rustics.68 The lyrical
serranillas of the Marques de Santillana, also dating from the mid-fifteenth
century, involve assertive but attractive mountain girls.69 The poet's assess­
ment that each serrana is uniquely beautiful or gentil amounts to comic hy­
perbole and says more about the lovesick narrator than the rustic women, but
the latter at least possess a certain coy dignity.
If the Spanish tradition draws back from the grotesque female rustic,
German literature of the late Middle Ages thoroughly breaks down the earlier
distinction between alluring female peasants and their brutish male compan­
ions. In the Neidhart poems (as well as the German equivalents of the pas­
tourelle, such as in the Carmina Burana) the village girls are pretty if more
willful and scheming than the protagonists of the French pastourelles. By the
fifteenth century, however, the rustic women either have disappeared (as in
the prank stories about Neidhart's persecution of the villagers) or are rendered
as misshapen and grotesque. The peasant's image overall changes in late me­
dieval Germany from exemplar of folly to malevolent and debased, with no
distinction in this regard between men and women.
In later poems written in the manner of Neidhart, the male peasants are
even more violent than in the thirteenth-century versions. Elizabeth Traverse
has compared a song from two Neidhart manuscripts (MS R and MS c), one
regarded as containing the earliest forms and the other including additional
stanzas and poems.70 The original is a series of gloomy meditations on the
mirror theft and the stupidity of the peasants.71 Neidhart complains that the
peasants have taken his love from him. He threatens violence, but nothing
actually happens other than a scuffle among the peasants over a wreath of red
flowers. Neidhart wishes that "someone" would skewer his rival (here Enze­
men, not Engelmar), or that at the very least the peasants might beat each
other up.
The c manuscript contains fourteen additional stanzas, including four
that describe in gory detail a violent peasant brawl occasioned by the wreath.
A group of peasants gloats over plans to disembowel their enemies, and in
stanza 13 a lethal sword fight breaks out, which the poet regards with horror
mingled with satisfaction because five rustics are slain.72
In the fourteen Schwanklieder dating from the late fourteenth and early
fifteenth centuries (and assuredly not by Neidhart), the peasants are no
longer violent. The cause of Neidhart's enmity is the excrement-covered vio­
let, not the stolen mirror. Instead of making futile promises of revenge as in
the earlier poems, Neidhart cuts off the left legs of 32 dancing villagers.73 As a
 Unfavorable Images ofPeasants 172 Peasant Bodies, Male and Female 173

prankster, Neidhart consistently and successfully torments his enemies. The bianism" (from the German grob, Grobian meaning coarse, gross, a boor)
peasants have become more credulous and hapless than violent. Neidhart's would be popular in Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands from the sixteenth
enmity has nothing to do with frustrated love but with an innate hatred of to eighteenth centuries. Grobian art and literature catalogued the gluttony,
these savages who are likened to all manner of animals: bears, cranes, swine, violence, and boorishness of ill-favored rustics of both sexes, elaborating on
dogs, and so on. 74 the examples set by the festive representations of the sixteenth century whose
In Der Ring, by Heinrich Wittenwiler, written in about 1400, the gro­ roots, as we have seen, go back to Neidhart in the thirteenth century. 80
tesque female protagonist appears for the first time in German literature. The While the proliferation of rustic scenes in visual art of the sixteenth to
poem is some 9,700 lines long, the most extended German antipeasant satire, eighteenth centuries might indicate a feeling for realism and even a positive
and is largely taken up with the comically unpleasant wedding of Bertschi description of the life of the common people, there is usually an ideological
Triefnas (Dripnose) and Matzli Rilerenzumph (Touch-the-Cock). 75 Many of and moral edge. 81 The peasant is a laughable, reverse moral typification of
the Neidhart themes are echoed, including a cameo appearance by Neidhart bad manners and gross customs. As they were in the Middle Ages, now rus­
himself. The reader is treated to a Neidhart prank, dancing ending in a brawl, tics may be as much counterexample as specific target of ridicule, but this
and presumptuous peasants with ridiculous names foppishly dressed and does not mean rustic life is in itself somehow appreciated more favorably than
sporting murderous weapons. The results, however, are cataclysmic: a war it was in the frankly averse Grobian genre. Even in works such as those by
erupts between two peasant villages as a result of the brawl, and most of the Bruegel, which are not primarily intended to show peasants as wicked, the
villagers of Lappenhausen (Village of Fools) are killed. rural folk eat, dance, indulge bodily whims, and succumb to instinct and ma­
The tone of the work is even more unremittingly harsh than the late Nei­ terialism. The new element in Bruegel and the seventeenth century is the re­
dhart material or its other model, the short peasant-wedding poem of the discovery of the productive labor of the peasant. After centuries of festive and
fourteenth century, "Metzen Hochzit. " 76 The peasant men are rendered as useless peasants, the rustic as symbol of dutiful labor (as in The Fall ofIcarus)
subhuman more by their actions than by their physical form. Here it is the returns. 82
bride Matzli whom Wittenwiler depicts as impossibly ugly and malformed.
While Bertschi is merely healthy and (foolishly) proud, Matzli has a goiter
that hangs past her belly, teeth and hands like coal, cheeks "rosy as ashes,"
and breasts "as small as sacks of lard. " 77
Only one manuscript copy of Wittenwiler's Der Ring exists, so the work's
literary influence, at least at the outset, must have been fairly limited. The
grotesque female rustic was not quite so elaborately described in later an­
tipeasant satires, but from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, female and
male peasants in equal measure were commonly rendered as crude, ugly, and
disorderly, if not as deformed. In sixteenth-century woodcut engravings and
paintings, the riotous peasant wedding or other festive occasion emblematized
the low nature of rustics much in the manner of the Neidhart tradition but
with less lethal violence and with more gluttony and vomiting ( borrowed
from the Carnival plays). 78 In one of Frans Verbeeck's peasant-wedding paint­
ings, an inscription describes the bride as "an ugly, dirty, licentious beast,"
while the groom is merely sturdy and handsome (the pair is thus like the wed­
ding couple in Der Ring). 79 In general, however, it is the behavior of rustics
that is condemned, and their stocky, clumsy bodies exemplify a life given over
to immediate gratification. Men and women alike represent a disgraceful (al­
though amusing) material embodiment and lower nature. The genre of "Gro-
 Part' 4
Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity
 Chapter' 8
Peasant Warriors and Peasant Liberties

Peasant men represented embodiment of a coarse and lowly sort. Appetite,

cowardice, and an exclusive concern with the material and immediate ren­
dered them inept and morally unfit for war, hence to be denied the
perquisites of love or of freedom. Foundational legends explaining the origins
of nobles and serfs focused, as we have seen, on a genealogy of courage and
cowardice. The subordination of peasants shorn of the rhetoric of mutuality
was traced to an authoritative historical moment. Common benefit yielded
to a sharper distinction between those willing to fight, who deserved liberty,
and those incapable of the moral force of character necessary for risking life
in the field, condemned to unfree manual labor. Rather than recognizing a
functional division of responsibility, in which the military order protects and
the laborers feed, the legends enshrine the debased status of the latter.
This chapter looks at a notable response to the assertion of peasant timid­
ity, based on the syllogism equating freedom (hence dignity) with courage
and victory at arms. There were certain peasant communities that managed
to preserve their autonomy, often by force, and these could accept and exalt
the chivalric cult of bravery and its association with freedom, but now against
the nobles who attempted to subjugate them.

Peasants Who Seek to Become Knights

Peasants constituted the inerme vulgus of the Carolingian world. From the
ninth to eleventh centuries, as the nobility came to be identified with warfare,
the free-unfree distinction among the lower orders became less significant
than the division based on military competence. The nobility came to be re­
garded as the only truly free group, while all those incapable of making war
were regarded as in some sense constrained, regardless of their legal status.
 Peasant Agemy, Peasant Humanity 178
In the eleventh century, Andrew of Fleury, describing some of the mira­
cles of Saint Benedict in connection with his monastery, referred to peasants
(agrestes) as a multitude of the common unarmed folk. Andrew was scandal­
ized by clergy and common people who confronted knights in military com­
bat to uphold the Limoges peace ordinances of I03I. The peace armies, ac­
cording to Andrew, owed any success they had to their turbulent pride and
greed, which offset whatever moral superiority they might claim over the
knights. I For Andrew, the military gap between knight and peasant remained
immense, bridgeable only by exceptional mob violence. The helplessness of
peasants before the onslaught of knights is graphically depicted in Garin le
Loherain and celebrated in the violent fancies of Bertran de Born, who rhap­
sodized about rustics and their herds fleeing in terror as knights attacked
them on the run.2 The peasant is advised, in a French poem, to stay home
and leave his rusty sword hanging at the foot of his bed.3
Insofar as peasants could acquire the military skills of knights, the pros­
pect was disturbing. There were German ministeriales, knights who retained
servile status while performing military and sometimes important adminis­
trative functions. Although they were personally and not contractually oblig­
ated to their lords, the ministeriales were full-fledged knights with no connec­
tion to agricultural labor, nor did they bear the same burdens (such as head
taxes or exclusion from court) as unfree rustics.4 The ministeriales may have
had peasant ancestors, but if so, they were as distant and unknown as the an­
cestors of lesser free knights. Their lack of liberty was not conceptually joined
to any agrarian background.5 The Alsatian Chronicon Eberheimense (written
in n63) traced the establishment of ministeriales to Julius Caesar's campaigns
in Gaul. Having defeated the Gauls with the help of the Germans, Caesar
commended the German minores milites to their princes (now Roman sena­
tors), saying they should be treated no longer as servi but rather as their min­
isteria, whom they should protect.6
German military practice also offered opportunities for what Hugo von
Trimberg referred to as "Halbritter" (half-knights), those who could fight in
the manner of knights but who were dearly of rustic origin.7 In attacking this
class, Hugo repeated a long-standing complaint of other authors seeking to
correct the disorderly estates and functions of the Holy Roman Empire. In
the cycle of thirteenth-century didactic poems known as Seifried Helbling, a
hapless peasant serving unwillingly in his lord's army begs to be allowed to
return to his farm and plow, where he belongs.8 Ottokar of Styria, author of a
rhymed history of his region (written in the first years of the fourteenth cen­
tury), ridiculed the folly of the abbot of Admont in summoning peasants to
Peasant �rriors, Peasant Liberties 179
his army when they should be in the fields, performing useful ignoble activi­
ties.9 For Ottokar, as for Andrew of Fleury, the assumption remains that peas­
ants make poor soldiers.
Sancho Panza, exemplar of the rustic amusingly and unsuitably thrust
into adventure, has an extensive ancestry. Yet in Spain, during the medieval
centuries, there had been knights of non-noble social status, the caballeros
villanos, whose rights and duties as guardians of the frontier settlements gave
to medieval Castile much of its particular ethos and social character.Io
In early-medieval Italy the military caste was not exclusively noble.11
Rather of Verona, in the tenth century, offered a hypothetical typical lineage
for the son of a count: his grandfather might have been a judge, but his great­
great-grandfather a mere soldier. That soldier's father, in turn, could have
been anything: a fortune-teller, wrestler, fishmonger, muleteer-a knight or
a peasant. 12 Apart from the ministeriales, the late-medieval empire had low­
born mercenaries and other formidable infantry forces such as the Swiss and
Hussite armies. The Swiss emerged as the finest soldiers in Europe by the end
of the fifteenth century, defeating mounted companies, as Charles the Bold's
defeats at the end of his career demonstrate.
That the image of peasant helplessness and martial incompetence did not
conform consistently to social reality provoked a number of reactions from
contemporary observers and variations on the dominant conventions of his­
tory and literature. The seemingly unnatural intrusion of rustics from the
realm of Demeter into that of Mars stirred derision or fear, but in some in­
stances the possibility of a measure of admiration.
Peasants' attempts to imitate chivalric violence were often presented as
comical. An early-sixteenth-century German drawing of a peasant tourna­
ment (Fig. rn) depicts a rustic "knight" charging at an unseen enemy. The
would-be knight is armed with a rake rather than a lance. A straw basket
functions as his shield, and a beehive topped with a heraldic shoe serves as his
helmet.
There were several ways of denouncing peasant pretensions to military
status besides simple ridicule. Perhaps the best-known account of the fatal
consequences of a peasant seeking to become a knight is the German poem
Helmbrecht, which has been mentioned in connection with the image of the
productive peasant. In this late-thirteenth-century story, a young peasant of
more strength than sense determines to leave the farm and become a knight.
His father attempts to prevent this rebellion against his ordained station, re­
monstrating with his obstinate son that his place is at the plow. 13 Ignoring his
father, Helmbrecht becomes a robber-knight and terrorizes the countryside,
 Peasant Agenry, Peasant Humanity 180
IO. Peasant tournament. Drawing by Hans Burgkmaier, early sixteenth century.
Photograph by Stadelsches Kunstinstitut und Stadtische Galerie, Frankfurt am
Main. Reprinted by permission of Stadelsches Kunstinstitut und Stadtische Galerie,
Frankfurt am Main.
all the while ridiculously imitating the external attributes of chivalry. He
comes to a bad end, maimed and then killed while his father looks on in grim
satisfaction.
It is important to emphasize, however, that Helmbrecht is not portrayed
as militarily inept.All the so-called knights in the poem are lowborn brig­
ands, and Helmbrecht is as competent as any in performing violent deeds.
While ludicrously unsuccessful at imitating chivalric manners and dress, he
is able, for a time, to make a career of fighting.His is a moral rather than a
military failure, and his father's warning is not literally true: it is possible at
least temporarily to change one's status. Thus the poem does not imply a
complacent encomium of the noble class but a more disturbing(picture of a
world given over to stupid violence. \
Some examples of rustic warriors crop up in medieval romances, but they
remain burdened with other characteristic peasant markers and so function
as chivalric parodies.The eponymous hero of the scatological mock epic Au­
digier is manifestly comical, but even the honorable and militarily able vilain
Rigaut in Garin le Loherain is filthy and hideous.14 Neither circum�tance nor
Peasant "Warriors, Peasant Liberties 181
even physical deficiency makes rustics incapable of war, but their nature.
Perceval becomes an exemplary knight, but the whole point is that he is not
really a rustic.
Germany had peasant knights, and they were on occasion acknowledged
as important by their superiors. Otto of Freising, in his account of the deeds
of Frederick Barbarossa, describes how a rustic soldier (strator) whom the em­
peror wished to elevate to knighthood for his valor during the siege of Tor­
tona declined the honor, saying he was of humble status ( cum plebium se
diceret) and preferred to remain in that order.15 More often, peasant ambi­
tions for knighthood were denounced in the manner of Helmbrecht or the
Neidhart poems. Peasants were perceived as dangerously close to breaching
the frontier between them and the lower ranks of knights.The peace ordi­
nance issued by Frederick Barbarossa in n52 prohibited peasants from carry­
ing lances or swords.16 A Bavarian ordinance of 1244 allowed peasants to keep
weapons to protect their houses but regulated what arms they could carry as
well as the color and quality of their clothing.17 Here the problems are the
same as those addressed by Helmbrecht: the arrogant peasants who use swords
and affect knightly dress and hauteur.
The concern with peasant weapons and ambitions is characteristic of the
Hohenstaufen and Interregnum empires.The author of the (literally) censo­
rious Buch der Rugen, written in Bavaria slightly before Helmbrecht, praises
peasants' piety but condemns their senseless lust for spear and shield, which
they prefer to keeping their hand on the plow as is proper.18 The Franciscan
preacher Berthold von Regensburg matched the sentiments of Helmbrecht by
instructing his peasant audiences that they must not seek to change their di­
vinely appointed status, since all men have been given their vocation by
God.19 Elsewhere Berthold is more anxious and forceful: "Even though you
wish to become a knight, you must be a peasant and cultivate for us wheat
and wine....Who would then guide the plow if all of you were lords?" 2° For
peasants to seek to become knights violates not only functional hierarchies
but also Providential dispensation.The fourteenth-century allegorical inter­
pretation of the Book of Daniel composed in the Prussia of the Teutonic Or­
der urges peasants to return to their plows cheerfully, for which they will re­
ceive their proper place (and a crown) in heaven. 21
Peasant Armies
Literate observers agreed fairly widely that insofar as peasants could actually
acquire the equipment and privileges of knights, this was a lamentable thing.
What if peasants who remained in their order should come to possess weap-
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 182
ons and military force? Andrew of Fleury's criticism of the Limoges Peace of
1031 is typical of the anxieties evoked by the sight of armed peasants even if
they were simply attempting to defend themselves from the depredations of
knights. Indeed, as Georges Duby has shown, the ideological model of the
three orders of society was shaped by the desire to discourage clergy and com­
moners from taking up arms. The identification of functional orders and the
idea of mutuality arose from a process of exclusion of those who pray and
those who labor from the world of military violence. The formulations of
Adalbero of Laon and Gerard of Cambrai responded to disruption of appro- .
priate and divinely ordained social boundaries perpetrated by the Peace of
God.
If an armed rural populace represented disturbing proof of social disinte­
gration in the eyes of Adalbero of Laon or Andrew of Fleury, it also raised the
question of the knights' discharge of their responsibilities. This problem be­
came dearer once knighthood was sacralized and noble status defined by mil­
itary function. In Hungary in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the
fact that peasants and clergy were conspicuous in armies mobilized against
the Turks occasioned condemnation, but it was directed against the perceived
dereliction of the nobles more than against the scandal of inappropriate ac­
tivities by the other two orders.22
It was also possible within the normal terms of elite discourse to accord
some sympathy and perhaps apprehensive respect to peasants not engaged in
crusades (such as those against the Turks in Hungary) but simply defending
themselves against nobles, even their own lords. The Schwabenspiege4 a Ger­
man law collection of the thirteenth century, states that lords are charged
with defending the land and its people, and that if they fail in this duty, they
are not owed obedience.23 This is not addressed to peasants as such, but it
does go beyond the normal vassalic right to withdraw from the service of an
unjust lord in that it treats the obligation to defend the territory and its in­
habitants, not simply one's dependents.
In 1240 Bartholomaeus Anglicus admiringly described the Frisian peas­
ants who formed free communities and preferred to sacrifice their lives than
to live under the yoke of servitude.24 In 1256, these peasant warriors would in
fact defeat the army of William, count of Holland. They enticed tpe heavily
armored and mounted count into frozen marshlands and easily dispatched
him after he fell through the ice.25 Such exceptional populations were accept­
able as curiosities, but of course this did not mean that Bartholomaeus, or
anyone else of the higher orders, recommended them as a general model.
That the peasants might take revenge on the lords for mistreatment was
not as impossible to accept as we might think. Armed peasants participated
Peasant Wa"iors, Peasant Liberties 183
in the Peace and the Truce of God against seigneurial violence in the late
tenth and early eleventh centuries.26 The Peace and the Truce eventually were
taken over by secular authorities, and so an interlude of peasant agency was
ended by the second half of the eleventh century.27
In addition to such temporarily sanctioned means of disputing seigneur­
ial violence, there was a tradition of direct but somewhat clandestine peasant
violence. In a surprising number of cases, peasants killed their lords without
incurring the punishment one would expect (even in cases where it was pun­
ished, the crime did not give rise to sanguinary counterviolence). A study by
Robert Jacob focusing on incidents in which lords were killed by collective
and premeditated action is quite revealing.28 He has found twelve such assas­
sinations for northern France from 1040 to n50, of which seven took place in
Flanders and Artois. Included in this figure are deaths caused by rebellious
vassals (such as the murder of Charles the Good, count of Flanders), but
there are also at least three murders by peasants of unjust lords or of higher
seigneurial functionaries, the best known of which was the death of Arnoul
III of Ardres, who was strangled in n40. Certain private grudges had a reso­
nance beyond the immediate motive and perpetrator. At the end of the
eleventh century, an ecclesiastical advocatus named Dudo was killed by a cer­
tain Gunter, but this essentially private act of vengeance was cheered by the
local peasantry and commemorated as late as sixty years after the event.29
Seigneurial murder was not regarded as extraordinary, nor was it neces­
sarily thought of as a terrible crime. The killing of lords was presented as ei­
ther the martyrdom of a just ruler (Charles the Good) or, more commonly,
the judgment of God against a local tyrant. Jacob finds that all of these inci­
dents are in the nature of a revolt, and that far from indicating spontaneous
lawlessness, they were structured according to certain patterns and rituals.
The lord of the Andalusian village of Fuenteovejuna, Fernan Gomez de
Guzman, commander of the Order of Calatrava, was murdered in 1476 to
put an end to his abusive lordship. As immortalized by the poet and drama­
tist Lope de Vega in the seventeenth century, the villagers were united in
claiming collective responsibility for the deed ("Fuenteovejuna, todos a una'').
They escaped serious punishment, albeit not entirely because of their own
courage but in part thanks to the support of the authorities of Cordoba. 30
For Spanish Galicia, Carlos Barros has unearthed eight murders· of lords
resulting from social revolts between 1369 and 1527. Within an extremely vio­
lent environment in which both official and private rituals of vengeance were
common, the violent disposal of an unjust lord even by peasants was neither
unexpected nor regarded as a violation of divine law.31 The seigneurial regime
and aristocratic mentality could tolerate certain direct forms of peasant ac-
 Peasant Agemy, Peasant Humanity 184
tion. What was feared and violently denounced was mass movement on the
order of the rebellions of the late Middle Ages.
The relatively discreet disposal of an oppressive lord is not the same as an
armed peasant movement. Centuries before Courtrai or Agincourt, an un­
dercurrent of opinion hinted that knights could be effectively combated by
modestly equipped soldiers. The admittedly obscure narrative poem Eu­
polemius, a Latin work from twelfth-century Germany, offers several exam­
ples of poorly equipped soldiers mocked by better-armed opponents who
nevertheless succumb to the well-placed dart or spear.32 "Sometimes the
spears of peasants can harm a knight," the author remarks.33
Other voices warned of the limits of oppressive conduct. The thirteenth­
century poet known as Der Stricker wrote a short animal-metaphor story
about a place (the "Gau," meaning simply "district") inhabited by chickens
(die Gauhuhnern), where knights tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to build
castles. They were constantly defeated by the forces of nature, but also by the
legitimate authority of the ruler (the Landesherr). In warning of the conse­
quences of erecting fortifications to exploit the countryside, the author refers
to the power of peasants who know how to destroy castles no matter how
strongly protected they may be. The inhabitants of "Kirchelinge" (Kirling, in
Austria near Klosterneuburg) have already demonstrated this. Rustic anger
(zorn) is not that of a rebellious or disorderly mass but of a formidable and
reasonable populace.34
In Catalonia peasant militias were formed by King James I in 1258 to
combat disorder. This legislation grew out of the royal Peace ordinances and
the privilege given to Barcelona to enforce it. Throughout the fourteenth cen­
tury these police forces, which were especially active in the rural territory sur­
rounding Barcelona, earned the condemnation of nobles. They saw the peas­
ants, with some justice, as mobilized against their interests, for the militias
were empowered to arrest, and to enter and even destroy fortified places. At a
parliament that met at Perpignan in the mid-fourteenth century, a noble
spokesman referred to the legislation permitting such militias as a "wicked
and terrible practice or law . . . contrary to God, the lord king, and good cus­
toms." He described the militias as "a riot of peasants who have neither rea­
son, sense, nor understanding of what they do."35
The failure of lords to uphold the obligations incumbent on th¢ir order
led to retribution from the peasants. A popular poem of the fifteenth century
reflects currents of peasant as well as elite opinion, condemning the nobles
for failure to protect the poor and threatening them with death at the hands
of the peasants: "The nobility should protect the poor, as is its duty. But the
Peasant \%rriors, Peasant Liberties 185
nobles are disgraced and neglect their duty. God will not suffer this, he will
torment the wicked. Some day they will be slain by the common peasant."36
Free Peasant Communities
ANDORRA
The dearest evidence for peasants rejoicing in their feats of arms comes from
those places in Europe where free rural communities successfully defended
their claims to freedom, often by resort to arms. In privileged valleys such as
Andorra, rural inhabitants were able to preserve a substantial measure of self­
government and free status amidst seigneurial power. These communities
were vividly aware of their unusual good fortune. Explanations of such anom­
alous self-government referred to a combination of geographical determinism
(isolation or mountain liberties), and the ability to fight off seigneurial incur­
sions. In elaborating foundational myths or celebrating victories against the
nobles, free rural communities exalted their exceptional fortune while accept­
ing the conventional linkage of bravery with liberty.
In Andorra there was no heroic struggle with a seigneurial outsider that
defined the moment of liberty and its meaning-no William Tell. The liber­
ties of Andorra emerged gradually.37 The principality was formed from six
parishes in and adjoining the valley of the Valira River.38 Referred to both as
the "Valley of Andorra'' and the "Valleys of Andorra," the territory was able
to prolong the relatively free structure of land tenure that characterized Cat­
alonia in the tenth century.39 Although elsewhere seigneurial regimes were
able to impose heavier and more arbitrary obligations on rural tenants after
1050, the Andorrans were able to preserve a measure of autonomy and repre­
sentation that were eroded in most parts of Catalonia.4° From 1278 to the pre­
sent Andorra has been a coprincipality shared by the bishops of Urgell and
the counts of Foix (the latter succeeded by the king of France near the end of
the sixteenth century, and the king succeeded in turn by the subsequent
heads of the French state). Andorra was able to play its co-lords off against
each other, but its curious survival through an era in which small privileged
communities were absorbed by nation states was due also to the difficulty of
breaking up a shared jurisdiction. Above all, the Andorrans were able to con­
vert what were originally arrangements to exploit them into effective charters
of privileged liberty.
This does not mean that Andorra was free from exactions or the profits
from lordship. Particularly in the late Middle Ages, the counts of Foix and
bishops of Urgell obtained considerable revenue from justice, tithes, rents on
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 186
land, and various aids and customary tributes in money and kind. 41 Andorra's
privileged status consisted of recognition as a political entity, a measure oflo­
cal government through a representative council of prominent men, specific
rights regarding the pasturing of livestock, and exemption from the most de­
grading seigneurial dues.42
Originally subject to the counts of Urgell, Andorra became much more
closely tied to secular lordship of the bishops ofUrgell from the late tenth to
the early twelfth centuries as the ambitions of the count turned toward the
south. The bishop consolidated his power over the valleys by means of dona-
tions and the exercise of military and judicial authority. The noble family of
Caboet reinforced the sway of the bishops of Urgell in the early eleventh to
late twelfth centuries by providing military support in return for a share of
Andorra's revenues. The Caboet performed homage to the bishops for their
jurisdictional and fiscal privileges. The extinction of the male line of Caboet
and the marriage of Arnaldeta de Caboet to Arnau de Castellbo in n85
brought the more powerful and less deferential viscounts of Castellbo into ri­
valry with the bishops for control over various territories in the diocese of
Urgell, including Andorra. The Castellbo were in turn merged into the comi­
tal family of Foix in 1226. The counts of Foix waged several wars with the
bishops ofUrgell over Andorra during the thirteenth century and refused to
perform any meaningful homage for tributes they levied in the valleys.
The Andorrans profited from their ability to maneuver among rival lords.
Already by the late twelfth century they had obtained recognition as a com­
munity capable of negotiating with the bishops of Urgell. They acknowl­
edged episcopal rights to tithes, military service, and justice, but they asserted
their agency and their legal standing in one agreement (of II76) that was
signed by every male head of household in Andorra, some 383 in all. 43 The
struggle between the counts of Foix and bishops ofUrgell was finally resolved
in 1278 and 1288 by arbitration in two agreements known as pariatges. 44 The
treaties provided for the sharing of lordship. This was not a partition but a
joint exercise of seigneurial jurisdiction (communiter et simul or communiter
et indivisio), something not unknown in Foix and other lands on the northern
side of the Pyrenees, where similar agreements were made between nobles
and various ecclesiastical entities from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. 45
The bishop and count agreed to alternate year by year in collecting the gen­
eral tribute oflordship (the questa). They both retained rights to summon the
men ofAndorra to military service, but not against each other. The count ob­
tained a larger share of profits from the exercise of justice, while the bishop
obtained the tithes and other ecclesiastical dues. The count acknowledged
holding his rights from the bishop, but the pariatges elevated the status ofthe
Peasant W'arriors, Peasant Liberties 187
count with regard to Andorra to something more than a military subordinate.
Before 1278 the bishops had been clearly the lords ofAndorra, while their sec­
ular partners were obedient or rebellious vassals. The pariatges gave equal sta­
tus to the representatives of each lord in the levying of tributes and the ad­
ministration of justice, so that, in effect, the two powers were co-princes, a ti­
tle they would adopt officially later.
The first pariatge recognized that Andorrans were exempt from seigneur­
ial taxes on marriage and inheritance (cugucia, intestia, and exorquia), which
had become indices ofservile status in Catalonia. But the pariatges did not at
the moment of their enactment establish an extraordinary degree of liberty or
the peculiar status that Andorra would enjoy in later centuries. The pariatges
were intended as a means ofsharing the profitable exploitation of the valleys,
not as charters of exemption. By the late Middle Ages Andorra clearly en­
joyed privileged communal identity that was unusual if not yet unique, but
it was never a peasant republic completely free ofexternal lordship in the way
that Dithmarschen or certain Swiss communities could claim.
Its reputation in modern times as a haven of happy, archaic liberty was
due to the ability of the Andorrans to turn the two pariatges into effective
constitutional documents. This was possible because the two lords could be
played off against each other, but also because by the fourteenth century An­
dorra was recognized as exceptional within the Pyrenees, which at one time
had many free communities. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and even
at the ·time of the pariatges, Andorra was not so unusual. Other Pyrenean sub­
regions, such as the Vall d'Aran and the Vall de Querol, enjoyed exemptions
from various comital or seigneurial levies. 46 Mountain villages, such as
Bescaran in the diocese ofUrgell, held charters from the counts of Barcelona
and for a time could repel seigneurial demands such as the military service
claimed by the bishop ofUrgell in 1085. Ten years later, the men of Bescaran
had to place themselves under the bishop's "protection" but reasserted their
status as homines liberi, although a document of 1097 shows them paying the
servile dues in cases of death without direct heirs (exorquia) and cases of fe­
male adultery (cugucia). 47
The exceptional nature of Andorra's status began to become clear in the
century after the pariatges, when it was declared not to belong to any of the
territorial or seigneurial powers of the region but to be ruled indivisibly by
representatives of the co-princes. 48 The Andorrans managed to deflect at­
tempts of the kings of Aragon and the Catalan estates in the late fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries to tax or annex them. 49 In the fourteenth century the
men of Andorra obtained recognition of their rights to defend themselves
with weapons, appeared as litigants in matters involving pasture rights, and
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 188
remonstrated with the co-princes concerning the administration of their
land.50 The pariatges were successfully used to resist annexation by territorial
states and changes in the system of local levies and administration of justice.
These limited but significant rights would come to be regarded as a puzzling
anomaly, a curious survival, or a minor miracle during the ancien regime and
in modern times.By the eighteenth century, when Andorra's official custom­
ary and administrative law treatise was drawn up, its author, Antoni Fiter,
could attribute to a special providential dispensation the preservation of "a
holy and honest liberty which is the envy and admiration of all nations that
know of it."51
The privileged status of Andorra was underscored by the successful claim
to neutrality.The first pariatge forbade the men of Andorra to take sides in
the event of a quarrel between their co-princes.In 1515 the Andorrans argued
before the Catalan parliament that this meant they were permanently neutral
with regard to all conflicts, although in fact, as we have noted, the pariatge al­
lowed either prince to summon the Andorrans to military service as long as it
was not against the other prince.52 Andorra's neutrality would be of crucial
significance to the Manual digest and its supplement, the Politar Andorra. Al­
though Switzerland's neutrality was recognized by international law in 1815,
Andorra has the unofficial (although admittedly impressive) authority con­
ferred by centuries without invasion.53
In addition to the pariatges, Andorra claimed Charlemagne as a source of
its legitimacy.A false privilege of the emperor (probably from the twelfth cen­
tury) attributes the peopling of the valleys forming Andorra to an effort to
settle inhabitants in lands wrested from the Moors.Although rights of high
justice are granted to the count of Barcelona, the inhabitants are allowed to
elect whatever lord they wish, whose responsibility will be to defend them
(senior defensor). 54
This document indicates the prestige of Carolingian origins during the
twelfth century, although for Andorra (unlike most of the rest of Europe),
Charlemagne would be invoked in modern times more than during the me­
dieval era.Later authorities pointed to the Charlemagne charter as the basis
for the equality of all the inhabitants of the valley.55 Charlemagne is invoked
in the Andorran National Hymn, with words by Joan Belloch Vivo, bishop
of Urgell (hence co-prince of Andorra) from 1906 to 1918.The anthem be­
gins: "Great Charlemagne, my father, freed me from the Arabs....I remain
alone the unique daughter of Charlemagne's empire, believing and free for
eleven centuries, believing and free I want to remain."56
For Andorra, Charlemagne was the founder of liberty, while for Catalonia
Peasant i\larriors, Peasant Liberties 189
he legitimated servitude. No claim was made that the Andorrans served
Charlemagne with extraordinary distinction.Their privileges were those of
early settlers, able certainly to defend their land, but not soldiers in the van­
guard of reconquest. According to a popular etymology, the name Andorra
was bestowed by Charlemagne in reference to the biblical Valley of Endor,
where the Medianites were defeated; no heroic battle is specifically recalled or
invented.57
Another relatively modern notion used to explain the peculiar liberty of
Andorra was its alleged geographical isolation and the resulting fortunate ig­
norance of outsiders. In Catalonia it is still common to indicate that some­
one has traveled widely by saying "he has been to the Mint [Venice], Mecca,
and the Valley of Andorra."85 Nevertheless Andorra is in fact not all that iso­
lated and in certain respects was less so in the Middle Ages (when all roads
were difficult) than it is today. The Pyrenees have tended to be a passage
rather than a barrier.59
The idea of mountain liberties is closely related to the difficulty-of-ter­
rain argument: it would seem self-evidently easier to preserve freedom when
the land is difficult to invade.Switzerland immediately comes to mind in this
connection, but difficulty is not the same thing as isolation (it was the impor­
tance of the mountain passes rather than remoteness that allowed the Swiss
forest cantons to negotiate with princes and emperors). Moreover, isolation
can work both ways. Mountain regions can display what Chris Wickham
refers to as "the Count Dracula model" of oppressive lordship in which lim­
ited accessibility allows a local despot unusual opportunities.60 Near Andorra
lay the valley of Castellbo, which was harshly ruled by violent brigand-like
viscounts and which had become terribly impoverished by the sixteenth cen­
tury.61 On the other side of the mountains were villages such as Montaillou,
which was also poor but where serfdom (or really any sort of effective lord­
ship) was unknown.62 Also in the Pyrenees, one finds peasants in the county
of Bigorre firmly subjugated to servile status in close proximity to communi­
ties such as Salies-de-Bearn, which lacked all formal ties of dependence.63
Andorra was clearly privileged and for reasons traceable neither to
Charlemagne nor to geography. In Switzerland one finds a similar combina­
tion of imagery: virtuous poverty, isolation, and mountain liberties.There,
however, freedom was conceived in terms of a martial tradition: liberties de­
fended by force, a conception that Switzerland is only now abandoning.An­
dorra thought of itself in modern times as privileged by reason of detachment
from the centers of power and oppression, protected by its co-princes, by its
pariatges, and by neutral isolation, the "Brigadoon" or "Shangri-la" model,
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 190
quietly opting out of rather than battling oppressive lordship or political an­
nexation. Although in the mid-eighteenth century Fiter could describe An­
dorra as the envy of all nations familiar with it, he was not eager to have its
fame spread too widely.
He appended to his legal treatise a list of moral and practical maxims for
good political conduct. Maxim 26 recommended that peasants be favored by
the government, citing the example of the Roman Republic.64 Fiter tellingly
reinforced the image of a poor but virtuous rusticity by instructing Andor­
rans never to boast of wealth or power but always to "preach the poverty and
weakness of the valleys" (which is, he went on to observe, after all true).65
Perhaps most revealingly, in his prologue Fiter stipulated that the Manual di­
gest never be printed. It should be available only in manuscript copies kept
within Andorra to avoid encouraging foreigners to learn how the valleys were
governed.66
Only very recently, in 1993, did Andorra alter its status by adopting a
constitution allowing it to claim sovereignty in accord with international
law.67 The co-princes remain the official heads of state, but Andorra is fully
independent, is represented in the United Nations and so has shed at least
some of its Ruritanian aura. The peculiar continuity of Andorra, its reputa­
tion as a vestige of a feudal agreement, has now ended.
SWITZERLAND
The most famous territory of liberty protected by military skill is Switzerland.
In an embittered look at what he took to be the Swiss habit of complacent
neutrality, Max Frisch chose the name Andorra for a play about Switzerland's
indifference toward refugees from the Nazis.68 Despite certain similarities to
Andorra, Switzerland during the medieval and early modern period was more
violent and heroic than the quietly neutral principality. Switzerland's contem­
porary reputation for peaceful standoffishness, reinforced by its fortunate eva­
sion of the world wars, is not in fact sanctified by extremely long usage-its
neutrality was recognized three centuries after Andorra's (albeit by a more of­
ficial international body). Moreover, until very recently, Switzerland guarded
its neutrality not through passive obscurity but by universal conscription. and
a sophisticated military defense.69
Switzerland generated cycles of myths of mountain liberties that were so
well disseminated, through such works as Schiller's Wilhelm Tel4 as to have
become national, even commercial cliches. A logo for products made in
Switzerland is the crossbow of William Tell. The statue of Tell and his son,
which was erected at Uri in 1895, has been copied in everything from decora­
tive handkerchiefs to advertisements.70 So hackneyed is the Tell legend that
Peasant W'arriors, Peasant Liberties 191
the most extensive recent treatment of Tell's career and image began, its au­
thor says, as a joke.71
Another cliche of Swiss liberty is the argument from geographical deter­
minism that equates rugged terrain with freedom. For Switzerland, as for An­
dorra, the assumption that mountains are difficult to conquer and so encour­
aged liberty does not weather examination. Not only were the actual conflicts
over Swiss liberties determined in the woodland and lakeshore of the Mittel­
land, not in the Alps, but on those occasions when armies (such as Napo­
leon's) did invade, the mountains proved, in Christopher Hughes's words,
"singularly penetrable."72
Switzerland also shares with Andorra (although the former case is much
better known) a reputation for privileged happiness. In the eighteenth cen­
tury the Alps suddenly seemed beautiful, but the people were still regarded as
wretched. Beginning in the romantic era, the good fortune of the Swiss was
related to landscape. Switzerland's exemption from war in recent centuries af­
forded it additional and unusual luck. In the twentieth century wealth was
added to this agreeable picture.
Nevertheless, even for the earlier period, when Switzerland was poor,
when the mountains were regarded as horrifying, when in addition the Swiss
were famous soldiers, they were deemed privileged, not because of wealth,
beauty of landscape, or peace, but because of their unusual liberty. This too is
not quite all that it seems, since to speak of Switzerland as if it were at all a
consistent, unified polity before 1815 is inaccurate. The Swiss Confederation
included what may be considered free communities of shepherds and other
herdsmen (the original Forest Cantons or Appenzell), but also oligarchical
cities and seigneurial regions. What is now Switzerland would produce a folk
literature celebrating triumphs over princes, but also some of the bitterest at­
tacks on the peasantry, such as those written by Felix Hemmerli, of Zurich,
or Heinrich Wittenwiler, who came from Toggenburg.
By the late Middle Ages, the valleys and forests that had obtained de
facto rights by reason of their strategic position controlling access to moun­
tain passes had defended those rights in battle and were regarded (by friends,
enemies, and themselves) as free, which might mean without lords, or (to
their enemies) without law.73 They appeared to be exemplars of equality, and,
not completely accurately, of peasant equality. According to an anti-Swiss
poem written by Heinrich Behel during the Swabian War (1499), the Swiss
wanted to live free of all lordship. They refused to serve as anyone's serf
(knecht), and wanted to be their own masters.74
In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the Swiss (at least those in
the rural cantons) saw themselves as representatives of peasant virtue against
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 192
the nobles.75 Songs, plays, and other political propaganda-constituting what
Guy Marchal has dubbed the "Peasants' Answer"-praised the heroism of the
Swiss resistance to the lords who sought to conquer them. These works
should not he taken literally or ingenuously as the voices of the peasantry, and
their context is often as much the defense of urban as of rural privileges.76
Nevertheless, however artful and removed from genuine "folk" discourse, the
dramatic, musical, and poetic celebrations of Swiss victories invoke the image
of the pious peasant and put in the mouths of their adversaries great con­
tempt for these insolent opponents of lordship and seigneurial domination.
The Swiss self-image combined piety and local or prow-national patrio­
tism with celebration of the common man. The portrayal of William Tell, the
hero of resistance to seigneurial oppression, is the most famous and enduring
legend of the defense of liberty against seigneurial pretension.77 The question
of whether Tell existed and who he really was if he did exist is convoluted and
the object of enough controversy to form an industry, albeit in many respects
a discredited one. The authenticity of the story cannot be "proved" with con­
temporary documents. It first appears in the White Book ofSarnen, compiled
in the decade of the 1470s and rediscovered in the nineteenth century.78 Long
before the White Book was unearthed, however, Schiller had made Tell an in­
ternational hero. The earlier popularity of the legend was due to several texts
dating from the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially a ballad (Das
Lied von der Entstehung der Eidgesnossenschaft), whose earliest parts were writ­
ten in 1477, and an early-sixteenth-century play, Das Urner Tellspiel. 79 These
were the most important sources for what would prove to be the classic ac­
count by the antiquary Aegidius Tschudi in the mid-sixteenth century.80
The Tell story is a constitutional myth in which the grievances of the
people of the original cantons were mobilized by an act of insolence, cruelty,
and symbolic subjugation imposed by the Hapsburgs. Gessler, the Hapsburg
administrator for Uri and Schwyz, set up a hat in a prominent spot in the
marketplace at Altdorf and required all who passed it to bow. Tell did not so
much refuse the obeisance as simply not perform it, and when interrogated
by Gessler, he politely (but implausibly) attributed the lapse to forgetfulness.
By way of punishment, Tell, a noted marksman, was compelled to undergo
the mock-chivalric ordeal of shooting an apple off his son's head with a cross­
bow. If he missed altogether, he would be put to death, but of course if he
aimed carefully, he nevertheless risked killing his son. Gessler's punishment
combined danger with the same element of comic humiliation implied by the
setting up of the cap in the first place. Both were meant as graphic reminders
of who was the ruler and who the object of arbitrary control, or more perti­
nently, who the peasant. In the Urner Tellspiel Gessler exclaims:
Peasant \rarriors, Peasant Liberties 193
Say no more, Tell, you must do it,
For you shall have no mercy from me!
I desire my revenge from you peasants,
Even if it breaks your hearts.81
After Tell successfully shot the apple off his son's head, Gessler asked him
why he had held two arrows in his hand. Tell boldly answered that had his
first shot missed the apple or hit his son, he would have aimed his second
shot at Gessler. This arrogation of chivalric rights of revenge enraged Gessler,
and he ordered that Tell be shut up in a dungeon. Tell escaped from the boat
carrying1 him on Lake Lucerne to captivity. He later assassinated Gessler with
a crossbdw while the steward traveled toward his castle at Kiissnacht.
The Tell legend is not directly related to the establishment of the Con­
federation. The story ends abruptly, and at any rate takes place in 1307, after
the date 1291, which has been elevated by another quasi-historical tradition to
the status of foundational year. The Tell legend is, nevertheless, a response to
a symbolic vocabulary of subordination involving cruelty, capriciousness, and
the arbitrary exercise of power.
Another cycle of legendary explanations for the revolt appears along with
the accounts of Tell. This is the story of the "Three Swiss," well-off peasants
grossly insulted by boorish representatives of the nobility.82 The several atroc­
ities serve to explain and bring together the origins of the mutual oaths sup­
posed to have been sworn in 1291 at the field of Riitli. One narrative begins
almost in the manner of an antipastourelle. A lower-ranking Habsburg func­
tionary riding through the countryside sees a pretty rustic woman alone, her
husband off working in a nearby forest. The lecherous official orders her to
prepare him a bath and then to share the bath with him. She rushes outside
just as her husband is returning, and he avenges the insult by killing the sur­
prised functionary. They flee to safety inUri but strangely disappear from the
rest of the history. 83
In another instance, two peasants ofUnterwalden have their oxen seized,
and the father has his eyes gouged out because the son has the effrontery to
resist the seizure. The son takes refuge in Uri. Another conspirator is a well­
off peasant of Schwyz who owns a stone house, which the steward Gessler,
regarding such property as inappropriate for a rustic, takes from him (or
threatens to take in some versions). This peasant, too, departs.for Uri, where
he meets the young man whose oxen were taken and a native of Uri who is
the third founder (thus one native of each of the founding cantons is in­
cluded). They swear an oath at the field of Riitli and start the insurrection
that will lead to the recognition of the liberties of the cantons while retaining
their ties to the Holy Roman Empire. No date is supplied by the White Book.
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 194
Tschudi placed the oath in 1307, but it would be moved back to the conse­
crated date of 1291 when the document that established the Confederation
was found.
The legend of the Three Swiss shares certain attributes with other foun­
dational stories involving avenging of humiliation. The late-twelfth-century
Gesta comitum Barcinonensium traced the independence of Catalonia from
the Franks to the murder of the father of the dynastic founder, Guifre "the
Hairy." 84
The Swiss founders, however, are non-noble (Tell) or well-off peasants.
(the Three Swiss). The indignities that they avenge are what might be consid­
ered classic seigneurial abuses: sexual intimidation, arbitrary confiscation,
physical violence. The Swiss heroes are punished for their independence or
for possessing something regarded as fair game by their oppressors. The peas­
ant with the stone house is most dearly violating the limits of his status.
For our purposes it is not necessary to argue that these legends contain a
core of historically authentic material, nor that the medieval Swiss Confeder­
ation was in some constitutional sense a "peasant state." What we are con­
cerned with is an image of the liberty of rural common people, their resis­
tance to symbolic oppression by seigneurial authority, and some degree of jus­
tification and self-celebration.
The legends were extremely flexible. Tell appeared on the one hand as the
upstanding protofounder of the state and on the other as a revolutionary pro­
tector of the common man. By the late fifteenth century his name was in­
voked by peasant rebels in Germany, as at Niklashausen in 1476 and during
the several Bundshuh uprisings (1442-1517). The famous treatise on witch­
craft, the Malleus maleficarum, depicts Tell as a male witch, the diabolical in­
spirator of rebellious peasants.85
The Swiss celebrated their courage and the defeat of their aristocratic op­
ponents in a variety of genres. Popular songs (Kampftieder) that proliferated
in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries extolled the victories of the rural
cantons. While they are not battle songs in the sense of being spontaneous
compositions on the occasions of such triumphs as Morgarten (1315) or Nancy
(1477), they reflect, even in their artifice, the attributes of piety, courage, and
skill claimed by the Swiss. The noble and pious peasant soldiers appear as
fearless, valiant, stalwart, and determined to defend themselves to the death
against all who would seek to subdue them.86 & Marchal has pointed out,
the songs respond to learned as well as vernacular denunciations of the Swiss.
The attacks of Hemmerli and Jakob Wimpfeling, although written in Latin,
were well known and infuriating to peasants.87
In the century leading up to the great rebellion of 1525, the image of
Peasant "Warriors, Peasant Liberties 195
Switzerland in German-speaking lands was esteemed as the model of liberty
for the common man and the defense of freedom by force. The Swiss became
the object of scornful but apprehensive hatred on the part of urban and aris­
tocratic observers. For Felix Hemmerli in the mid-fifteenth century, the Swiss
embodied all the vices his exceptionally/'1ituperative imagination could apply
to peasants generally. They are not exactly peasants, since they herd animals
rather than cultivate land, but insofar as "rustic" connotes gross and uncouth
character, they are indeed rustics (rusticus a ruditate). HemmerIi was forced
to admit, however, that they were savagely effective soldiers. They were impi­
ous, treacherous, evil, and not so much men as monsters.88 According to
Hemmerli the Swiss are descendants of the Saxons defeated by Charlemagne,
who settled the wildest men of that nation to guard the Alpine passes. For a
time they were faithful warriors, willing to sacrifice sweat and blood to defend
the honor of the emperor, hence "Swiss" (Schwitzer) from "sweat" (schwitzen)
and the red background to their flag.89 This is a variation on the themes of
liberty, bravery, and the origins of nations we have discussed above. Now,
however, the Swiss peasants have become rebels against Church and empire,
thoroughly bestial, their savagery exemplified by their sexual prodivities.90
For most hostile observers the Swiss were symbols of a more dangerous
sort: they epitomized lordlessness. The Swiss are disobedient peasants, ac­
cording to the above-mentioned poem from the Swabian War (1499).91 Their
desire to live free defies God and His governance of the earth; like the Turks
they are enemies of Christendom.92 In his edict of April 1499 (which effec­
tively launched the Swabian War), Emperor Maximilian I vilified the Swiss as
crude, lowborn, un-Christian peasants whose rebellious impiety threatened
the survival of the German nation.93 Fear of lordless subversion and infidelity
were stimulated by the apparent military competence of the Swiss peasantry.
At the turn of the sixteenth century South Germany was seized with a
fever of expectation that the Swiss example would lead to the end of nobles'
domination. The Swiss came to represent not merely anomalous freedom but
a contagious inspiration, fomenting the potential ability of peasants or towns­
men to arm themselves against the nobles.94 Their desire to defend their lib­
erty had become a perilous ambition to free all peasants from lordship. A
chronicler of the Carinthian peasant uprising of 1478 attributed the rebellion
to the desire of the peasants to imitate "faithless Swiss customs."95 The Swa­
bian War song cited above puts in the mouth of the Swiss the ambition to es­
tablish a worldwide insurrection (buntschuh) so that everyone might be free.96
Peasants of neighboring regions, in the words of a song of 1525, "tried to learn
evil tricks from the Swiss and become their own lords." 97
The Swiss themselves turned their reputation for lordlessness to their own
 Peasant Agen� Peasant Humanity 196
honor. In Das Spiel von den a/ten und Jungen Eidgenossen, written in 1514, the
baseness of the nobles and the heroism of the Swiss have inverted the social
order: "the nobles have become peasants and the peasants nobles." This is not
a disordered social upheaval but a reflection of intrinsic moral character: "the
Swiss are the true nobles: it is their virtue, above all, which gives them nobil­
ity."98 The oppressed peasants of southern Germany admire the Swiss and
long to emulate them:
It would be better to be killed outright
than to wear such a heavy yoke,
Therefore you [Swiss] are the happiest of peoples
that live in these days.
And if you don't want any lords,
watch out now, and never stop. 99
It was in this era that Swiss mercenary companies were celebrated for
their victories against Burgundy and for bravery in the Italian wars. The cor­
relation of liberty with military prowess is explicit in a revolutionary pam­
phlet of 1525, An die Versammlung gemayner Bauerschaft, which praises the
Swiss who fight and usually win because they struggle to protect their land,
families, and freedom.100 The author adopts a popular rhyming motto: "Wer
meret Schwytz? Der herren geytz!" (What makes the Swiss grow? The lords'
greed!)101 "Swiss" meant the throwing off of noble exploitation and the for­
mation of a unified political community that would withstand, with arms,
seigneurial attempts to take back control.102
Anti-Swiss songs elaborated the theme of the heretical or un-Christian
nature of this rebellious people. An Austrian song of 1443 (at the time of the
Zurich War between an alliance of towns and the Hapsburgs against the
Confederation) calls upon God, His angels, and the saints for aid against
"such infamous people," whose success is an insult to Christianity.103 The
Swiss responded to specific antipeasant compositions by their enemies; thus a
Kampftiedin praise of the Swiss allies (Eidgenossen), also from 1443, answered
an Austrian song that had denounced them as pagans and Turks.104 In this
song, as elsewhere, the Swiss describe themselves as fromen Eidgenossen, pious
members of the common union. Although their enemies called them
"Schwiz," after the name of one of the original cantons of the Confederation,
the Swiss considered themselves part of a brotherhood united by a common
oath of mutual defense. Eidgenossenschaft carried the meaning of being with­
out a lord (which by the late fifteenth century also was implied by
"Swiss").105 This was the reproach of their enemies but also a source of pride
and identity.
Peasant 'Warriors, Peasant Liberties 197
Repeatedly the Swiss apostrophize themselves in war songs as "You pious
Eidgenossen," (rather than as "You Swiss"), invincible if they continue to obey
God.106 The conviction that they are God's people emerges in celebratory
songs such as one for the victory at Murten in 1476 in which the Swiss are
likened to the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea, having bested their no­
ble and seemingly more powerful enemies.107 The proof of God's particular
love for the Swiss is their victory in battle; thus piety and bravery are joined,
exalting peasants and herdsmen in a manner perfectly compatible with the
aristocratic equation of Christian rectitude proven and defended by force.
A long composition commemorating the victory of the Forest Cantons
and Lucerne against the Hapsburgs at Sempach in 1386 touches a series of
heroic themes associating valor, piety, and the defense of peasant liberties.
The song probably dates from the early sixteenth century and emphasizes
not only the courage of the Confederation but also the Austrians' misplaced
confidence that they could easily quell these peasants. Duke Leopold, who
lost his life at Sempach, is mocked for his rashness in trying to subdue the
peasants:
Duke Leopold of Austria was quite a bold man,
he didn't follow good advice,
he wanted to fight with the peasants,
he ventured forth in princely fashion
but when he came upon the peasants,
he met his death. 108
The enemy underestimates the Swiss, thinking to compel them to accept
lordship.109 Overconfidence resoundingly chastised is a common theme of
these songs, which depict mockery against the "rascally peasants" turning to
lamentation as nobles and their mercenaries suffer defeat at the hands of the
pious Eidgenossen. 110 In a Kampftied from the mid-fifteenth century, the no­
bles promise to subjugate the unruly Swiss as their serfs, but after the Swiss
show their skill and courage, the nobles turn fearful, lamenting:
The Common Man can't be beaten,
For the Swiss take no prisoners.
Therefore, let's get out of here,
For they are wild with anger
And will murder and despoil
The nobles on the spot.111
The Swiss oppose the "princes, knights, and nobles" with strong hearts
and virile skill, but this they receive through God's approval and their piety.
 Peasant Agen� Peasant Humanity 198
The Swiss pray before the battle, invoking Christ's sacrificial blood, which
saved sinners so that it might protect the land and its people.112 The fact that
the Swiss had been consistently able to fight off seemingly superior enemies
was proof of God's favor, as was constantly repeated in political addresses and
popular literature. 113
Festival plays were another form by which the virtues of the Swiss were
announced. They constituted a riposte to the German fashion for low come­
dies about peasant stupidity, ugliness, and vulgarity (especially Carnival
plays). In the Spiel von den alten und jungen Eidgenossen of 1514, not only are
nobles denounced for their rapacity, but the true nobility of the Swiss peas­
ants is said to be proven by their feats of arms, as at the Battle of Novara the
previous year. God has willed that the peasants should become nobles and the
nobles peasants, for the Swiss are God's chosen people, as proven by their
success in battle. It is the Swiss who form the true nobility, by reason of their
piety and valor.114 Here the peasants defend their right to liberty and attack
the failure of the nobles to live up to their calling. The nobility has perverted
the social order by plundering rather than defending the common good. In
response to accusations by Hemmerli and others that the peasants have over­
turned the mutual service of the traditional hierarchy, the Swiss invoke a
theme we shall see recurring at the dose of the Middle Ages:· the justification
of revolt or of peasant liberty by reference to a combination of piety and
bravery against a military aristocracy accused of abandoning its function. An­
other Kampflied from 1495, the time of the Swabian Wars, nicely sums up the
dichotomy of noble dereliction and Swiss righteousness. Addressing the no­
bles, the author, a certain "Brother Hans," castigates them for their effort to
subjugate the "pious noble peasants" of Switzerland. It is disgraceful that the
princes have abandoned their responsibility to protect Christendom against
the Turks while they are shedding Christian blood in Swiss lands.115
Thus in praising themselves in the face of the fear and contempt of
seigneurial Germany, the Swiss emphasized their skill at arms; their unex­
pected success must show God's favor. Piety and valor were conventionally al­
lied, but applied to the common man rather than the knights. The peasant
spokesmen reflect a different sort of valor (a communal defense of land and
liberty rather than individual pride), but partake of assumptions similar to
those of the nobles concerning piety: that it is a virtue proven in battle, not
the product of meekness or acceptance. Such an understanding of piety re­
sponds not only to the seigneurial contempt for the unmilitary peasant but
to the sermons and didactic literature that counsel passivity and obedience.
The combination of heroism and defense of peasant liberties would be largely
Peasant Warriors, Peasant Liberties 199
extinguished by the aftermath of the German Peasants' War of 1525 and the
eclipse of the Swiss armies during the Hapsburg-Valois wars. The Confedera­
tion and its allies were not harmed, but their prospects for exporting commu­
nal ideas to Swabia, Alsace, and Baden were unrealized, and subsequently
they were content to minimize their symbolic role as advocates of peasant
freedom.116
DITHMARSCHEN
The marshes of Friesland (in the Netherlands), as well as the northeastern
corner of Germany and southern Denmark, formed another region of peasant
liberty against seigneurial power. As already noted, in 1240 Bartholomaeus
Anglicus remarked on the exceptional freedom of the inhabitants of Frisia,
who appeared to live without lords.117 Just east of Frisia and slightly north
along the North Sea coast, at Stedingen, peasants revolted against the arch­
bishop of Bremen and the count of Oldenburg beginning in 1200.118 They re­
fused to pay oppressive dues (tributa) and, according to the Rasted Chronicle,
sought to defend their "liberty'' against all claims of lordship. They were
eventually subjugated but only with great difficulty. It required the proclama­
tion of a crusade against these "heretics" by Gregory IX to bring an end to
their decades of successful resistance. The Stedingen peasants were decisively
defeated at the Battle of Altenesch in 1234.
Among the indirect beneficiaries of this war was a federation of indepen­
dent peasant communities in another small marshy territory, Dithmarschen
in Holstein. Lying slightly north of Stedingen, Dithmarschen was protected
by the Danes against the ambitions of the counts of Holstein and others who
had expanded in the wake of the Wendish Crusade of n47. The Dith­
marschen peasants abandoned the alliance with the Danes and so profited
from the military setback suffered by Denmark's King Waldemar in 1227 at
the hands of the city of Lubeck, the counts of Holstein and Schwerin, and
the archbishop of Bremen. Their autonomy under the lordship of the arch­
bishop of Bremen was acknowledged in the aftermath of the Danish War.
Dithmarschen supported the crusade against the Stedinger and found its
nominal subordination to the archbishops convenient during the thirteenth
century. The power of family clans grew at the expense of the lesser nobility,
and the Dithmarschen peasants formed capable military forces that could de­
feat mounted knights on the swampy terrain of their homeland.119
The extended families of Dithmarschen established a confederation that
would be defended against the claims of the counts of Schleswig and Hol­
stein beginning in the early fourteenth century and the kings of Denmark in
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 200
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.In 1559 the Danes at last suc­
cessfully invaded Dithmarschen, defeating the peasants and massacring the
inhabitants of the capital,Meldorp,whereupon Dithmarschen was annexed
to Denmark.
Dithmarschen was, therefore, a free peasant community from the late
thirteenth century until 1559,aware of itself as an anomaly and with a strong
political cohesion born of military necessity. Dithmarschen litigated,signed
treaties, and concluded agreements with Denmark, Holstein, and other
neighboring powers.120 It also successfully defended itself in battle.
A number of songs have survived that commemorate the Dithmarschers'
surprising victories over the noble forces that came against them.,Two battles
were especially important as proof of the heroism of the peasant soldiers of
Dithmarschen.In 1404,after repeated efforts,the men of Dithmarschen cap­
tured the Marienburg,a castle belonging to the counts of Schleswig at Del­
brilgge, near Meldorp. A war song probably intended to inspire the Dith­
marschers to attack after an initial defeat commemorates a certain Rolf
Boikensohn,"the best in our land," who had fallen in the siege. Addressing
his people, Rolf exhorts them ("you proud Dithmarschers ") to destroy the
castle: "what hands have built,hands can destroy." The men of Dithmarschen
answer that they are willing to die before submitting to the count of Hol­
stein.121 The castle fell on Saint Oswald's Day (August 4), which was to be
observed as a holiday according to the Landrecht of Dithmarschen enacted in
1
447
.122
With the death of the last Schauenberg counts of Holstein, Denmark
would become the chief opponent of Dithmarschen's peculiar liberty. An­
other victory fraught with both tactical and symbolic significance was won
against the Danish King John at Hemmingstedt on Saint Valentine's Day,
1500.123 Hemmingstedt would be celebrated in nineteenth- and twentieth­
century German literature: a ballad by Theodor Fontane,for example,and a
novel by the anti-Semitic nationalist journalist and literary historian Adolf
Bartels.124 Several contemporary poems about the war against Denmark and
the Battle of Hemmingstedt were collected by the antiquary Johann Adolfi
(known as "Neocorus "), who died in about 1630. The last lines of one of
these poems warn against underestimating the strength of the peasants of
Dithmarschen,in a tone similar to that used by the Swiss with reference to
Leopold's defeat at Sempach:
Whoever comes against Dithmarschen
Had better come well-armed.
Shouldn't Dithmarschen belong to the peasants?
Surely they should be considered lords. 125
Peasant "Warriors, Peasant Liberties 201
Another poem boasts that many a proud nobleman lost his life in the
battle.126
Other poems join bravery to piety, God's favor,and the overconfidence
of their noble enemies,in a fashion again reminiscent of the Swiss examples.
The Danish army boasted before the battle that they would kill all the peas­
ants, while the Dithmarschers prayed to the Virgin, promising to build a
church in her honor if they should gain victory.The Danish forces recoiled
from the crucifix carried by the Dithmarschen army, and in a brief hour,
seven thousand of the Garde (Danish troops) fell in battle: 'This is what God
did by means of the Dithmarschen peasants!"127 The crucifix cheered the men
of Dithmarschen on to slay as many Danes,Holsteiners,and Frisians (from
the opposing army) as possible.Claims of miraculous intervention show how
exceptional peasant freedom and military victory was.The first of the poems
in Neocorus's collection calls the defeat of lords trying to destroy the com­
mon man (Iderman) a "wonder." The peasants' victory is made possible
through piety and fearlessness.128
In another poem,the Virgin Mary is again invoked as the protector of the
common people (armen Volkes). If the cause of the Dithmarschen peasants is
unjust,they should die,but if they have right on their side,they will triumph
through her patronage.129 Their Danish enemies boast that they will slay the
peasants like dogs,but the princes forget Christ's sacrifice.Rather than mock­
ing the saints and seeking to subjugate the men of Dithmarschen, they
should fight the infidels; "so says now the common man."13° Fear of God and
fearlessness before the enemy are thus joined.
Neocorus also reports a speech supposedly given on the eve of the Battle
of Hemmingstedt in which bravery,specifically willingness to face death,was
extolled as the price of freedom (here quite clearly opposed to the servitude
that the Danes sought to impose): "If we had to die a thousand deaths,even
without winning eternal fame, we should do it for the sake of our father­
land....Even those who are born serfs long to be free.Are we,who are born
free,to subject ourselves to servitude without resisting?"131 In Dithmarschen
as in Switzerland, the freedom of a community of peasants was associated
with military ability and piety.The success of the free peasants against those
who would subjugate them was recognized as exceptional,and attributed to
courage and divine favor.
___,
Peasants were capable of waging war,even before the advent of the Swiss and
other formidable late-medieval infantry companies.The conventions of social
description might portray peasants as militarily helpless,but they came to be
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 202 Peasant �rriors, Peasant Liberties 203

regarded as dangerous beginning in the fourteenth century. It was also at this in a corrupt world (corrupted especially in its clerical and noble estates).
time, as we have seen, that the self.)mage of free rural communities focused Their closeness to God was indicated not by acceptance of suffering but by
on martial and religious virtue in the defense of autonomy. victory in battle. But the opposing image, that of the piously enduring peas­
Images of peasant bravery inverted and answered chivalric themes. The ant, reflected quite a different belief, namely, that God favored the peasant
very fact that peasants defeated knights reversed what was supposed to be a only if the peasant accepted his lot. The following chapter looks at the image
military commonplace, namely the superiority of mounted warriors. Victo­ of the humbly suffering peasant, the patient emblem of Christian meekness,
ries against Hapsburgs or Danes proved divine favor not only because God Jerome's sancta rusticitas, as glossed by the Middle Ages. In the concluding
grants victory to whom he chooses in general, but because the peasants' tri­ chapter I will discuss how these two essentially opposed images might com­
umphs were "wonders." The heroic portrayal of peasant armies served also as bine in specific peasant uprisings of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.
a response to seigneurial stereotypes of peasants as militarily incompetent and
the symbolic construction of the peasant as gross embodiment, incapable of
passion, sacrifice, or privation. Finally, the songs and plays served to answer
accusations of infidelity with evidence of peasant piety and divine favor.
In one key respect the heroic images of peasants followed the seigneurial
model rather than contesting it. The Swiss and Dithmarschen peasants ac­
cepted a relationship between bravery and liberty similar to that found in
seigneurial myths of foundation. Peasants in free communities such as Dith­
marschen or the Swiss cantons appropriated this association of liberty with
military heroism. They justified their freedom not by reference to abstract or
even religious arguments, but in the first instance by what must be seen as the
common medieval political assumption that liberty is not inherent or "nat­
ural" but exceptional, the result of force.
Praising war and courage, the peasants of the best-known privileged com­
munities did not offer a completely countervailing theory of liberty or human
equality against the predominant chivalric values. They accepted a linkage
not only between war and freedom but also between physical militancy and
the crusade idea of piety. The victories of the Swiss forces and of the men of
Dithmarschen evidenced God's favor, all the more so in that these victories
were unusual within the context of normal peasant-lord encounters.
One must bear in mind, however, that there were really two basic and op­
posing images of peasant piety: that of the armed peasant who struggles for
an idea of Christian liberty and that of the oppressed rustic laborer who will
be rewarded by God for his quiescent suffering on earth. The former image,
as we have seen in this chapter, reflected an understanding of fundamental
human equality, a commitment to a more local communal struggle to protect
privileged status (freedom from seigneurial domination), and an acceptance
of a link between piety and testing in battle. This image took root particu­
larly in certain peasant communities, especially toward the end of the Middle
Ages, where the natural condition of the peasantry was seen as sanctifying:
they toiled, their labor fed others, they were the redoubt of true Christianity

Chapter' 9 torical taint hereditarily transmitted. But by their very ingenuity, such argu­
Pious and Exemplary Peasants
As the previous chapter has shown, it was possible, in certain instances, to re­
gard the peasant as a heroic figure, capable of military pro:"ess_ in defe?se of
liberty. Peasants themselves were able to manipulate the ch1valnc _eq�ation of
courage and liberty to rally local communities to de£r thos� �la1m1�g to be
their lords. If one of the key elements of the conventional nd1cule aimed at
the peasantry was its alleged cowardice and physical and moral unfitness for
war, certain communities of peasants displayed a military competence that
defied this typification while accepting the relation among prowess, honor,
and freedom.
This chapter examines a number of other means by which the �easant:Y
was exalted, especially the assertion that peasants possessed a special role m
the divine plan, not despite their lowly condition but because of it. We have
already discussed the background of this tendency: the necessity of peasant
labor combined with the lack of mutuality rendered the peasant the benefi­
ciary of the Christian language of reversal. If he was oppressed �n earth,
surely God would reward him in heaven, just as God would _p_ums� those
who exert terrestrial power (considered at times almost by definmon wicked).
It is worth recalling Stephen Langton's observation, commenting on Hosea,
that the poor will rule in heaven, hence we must befriend them in this life if
we are to be admitted to bliss in the next. The poor, according to Langton,
1
2
are elected by grace.
• •
Of particular importance is the status of the peasant as Christian. _As
noted previously, it was one thing to "marginalize" groups that were outside
the Church, such as Jews, Muslims, or distant mythical races, but quite an­
other, more difficult task to construct peasants as subhuman. True, it could
be argued that peasants were essentially lowly or bestial, or t�a� whate�er
equality might have existed originally had been obscured by a biblical or his-
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 205
ments recognized that the reason for the degradation of peasants was not self­
evident. After all, not only were peasants the majority population, whose la­
bor, moreover, supported all of society, but they professed Christianity and
thus had to be acknowledged as in some sense fully human.
I do not mean to suggest that Christianity conferred what would now be
understood as "rights," although something like this idea would lie behind the
Spanish debates of the sixteenth century over the slaughter of the Indians.
Could they be regarded as infidels and so be enslaved or killed if they had
never had a chance to accept or reject Christianity?3 But here rights are rather
basic: reduced to the right to remain alive. What Christianity was thought to
confer, according to at least a segment of medieval opinion, was a certain min­
imal human dignity and, related to that, a certain minimal human freedom.
Before examining the implications of Christianity for the humanity of the
peasant, I want first to look at some other responses to the dominant images
of peasants as stupid, envious, and disorderly.
Clever Peasants
The peasant could be credited with a degree of cleverness, not that of literate
erudition but a certain practical shrewdness. While the dominant image of
the peasant was that he was stupid, it was also possible to regard him as cun­
ning, a trait shading more than challenging his supposed ignorance. At times
the fool and trickster are the same person, and a subordinated person at­
tempting to deploy his cleverness must appear stupid, to convince his com­
placent betters that he is simple and innocent. To be sure, stories of trickery
in which the weak turn the tables on more powerful (but thereby less agile)
opponents are among the most versatile and prolific forms celebrating indi­
rect resistance.4 The Brer Rabbit folktales of the American slaves are well­
known examples of ingenuity triumphing over strength, stories in which the
wily rabbit outwits the fox and the wolf The tales could serve as oblique de­
nunciations of oppression, a "hidden transcript," in James Scott's formula­
tion. Yet this defiance did not always have to be completely hidden. The
wealthy are not quite so unobservant as to be utterly unaware of the opinions
of their servants. There have always been acceptable forms of at least slightly
subversive texts not only permitted but enjoyed by the dominant groups. The
sanitized but not completely innocuous version of the Brer Rabbit cycle, the
Uncle Remus stories, is not wholly divorced from its original inspiration.5
Those regarded as inferior are often simultaneously credited with a certain
practical cunning. The trickster may lose his dissident status and move from
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humani"ty 206
inspiration for the oppressed group to amusing rogue whose very need to be
so clever serves to reassure a complacent observer.
It is difficult to recover authentic peasant tales from the Middle Ages, as
opposed to discourse about peasants, and the study of medieval �exts is re­
plete with examples of those erroneously regard:d as pure e�press1�ns of the
common folk. But our interest is actually more m the cunnmg attributed to
peasants by those above them in society than in the peasants' own estimation
of their acuity. As early as the eleventh-century Latin poem Unibos (com­
posed probably in the Low Countries before the Gregorian Reform), the
peasant appears as resourceful and shrewd. The comically named Unus Bos
(i.e., "one ox"), a poor peasant, becomes rich despite the hatred of the three
village tyrants- the priest, the steward, and the village mayor-whom he
outsmarts.6
More often than as major actor in a story, the vilain figured as a general-
ized repository of folk-wisdom. Chretien's Eric et Enide, for example, opens
by citing a saying "among the vilainl' that many things are �eld in �ont:mpt
_
t hat are better than commonly thought.7 Lancelot, bemoanmg his imprison­
ment by the treacherous Maleagant, cites the supposed rustic commonplace
"it's hard to find a friend."8 In the Romance of Thebes, the peasants are the pu­
ta tive au thors of t he saying that he who makes a sword will find it turned
against him, a slight modification of Matthew 26:52.9
• •
Most observat ions attributed to the wisdom of the lowly describe an im­
perfect world, regarded not with indulgence but �ith a g�im sense o� t�e
power of misfortune. 10 Marie de France, in Eliduc, cites a say1 ng of the �tlazns
,
that it is foolish to count on the affection or constancy of ones lord.11 Slightly
more positive, but still in the nature of advice on surviving in a hostile world,
is a rustic teaching found in Wace's Brut: it is sometimes necessary to accept
a modicum of evil in order to prevent greater harm. 12 The virtues of compro­
mise and flexibility are exemplified as well, in the Anglo-Norman allegorical
treatise on the reckoning of time, Philip de Thaon's Comput (written m3 or
n19).13
Such attributions of common sense and worldly wisdom to the rustics
are, of course, hardly incompatible with an attitude of quite ordinary con­
tempt. Thus in Wace's Brut and t he Roman de Thebes, the vilain is both
source of folk sagacity and emblem of unsuitability for war.14 The thirteenth­
century German author Der Stricker wrote shor t moral tales such as "Der
Kluge Knecht," in which the peasant is an adroit trickster, and other works
in which peasants are typically stupid and violent.15
Among the fabliaux, which tend to depict rustics as gross, hapless, and
foolish, one finds certain stories in which the vilains outsmart their superiors,
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 207
reversing relations of power by cunning. A high-stakes contest of weak
against strong is the subject of "Le vilain qui conquist Paradis par Plait." 16 A
nameless peasant dies and his soul sneaks into heaven behind Saint Michael,
who is guiding an authorized soul. Saint Peter discovers the trespasser and is
about to expel him, for vilains are not allowed in paradise (a comical rework­
ing of the commonplace of heavenly egalitarianism, that there will be no serfs
in heaven).17 The stubborn soul argues not only with Peter but wi th Saint
Paul and Saint Thomas as well. What has he done to be barred from heaven?
Has he denied Christ as Peter did? Has he doubted the resurrection as did
Saint Thomas, or persecuted Christians in the manner of Paul before his con­
version? They may be saints, but what gives them the right to deny him ad­
mittance? God Himself appears, and the lowly soul presents Him, in effect,
with a contractual obligation: in life the rustic had been charitable, and he
died having confessed and received the sacraments; now God should live up
to His word. The rustic soul is finally let into paradise.
The sharp peasant is not always so virtuous. In "Le vilain mire," a wife
victimized by her brutal husband plots vengeance by informing the king's
messengers, who are desperately searching for a learned doctor, that her hus­
band is the wisest of all healers but requires being beaten to admit it.18 He is
beaten and then dragged before the king to cure the princess, who has a fish­
bone caught in her throat. The quick-witted peasant thinks to dislodge the
bone by making the princess laugh, which he manages to do by taking his
clothes off and pretending to grill himself in the hearth. His next challenge is
to cure several dozen people suffering from a variety of ailments. Figuring
t ha t the one t hing all surely suffer from is the fear of deat h (for not even
those most gravely ill truly long for deat h), he offers a sinister cure that can
be fabricated if the sickest of the patients agrees to give up his life and be
burned. The ashes are the medicine's vital ingredient, but of course the sick­
est patient refuses to sacrifice himself. The rustic has offered a credible solu­
tion t hat cannot be put to the test, hence his skill remains unquestioned.
Here we are invited to admire the ingenuity of the peasant without placing
him on especially high moral ground. Peasants are able to outwit their supe­
riors; in an amoral and exploitative world, they can win at least small victories
by cunning.
The German peasant character Markolf: popular from the thirteenth cen­
tury but particularly toward the end of the Middle Ages, embodies and com­
bines various strands of attributed cleverness. Markolf is presented as the au­
thor of proverbial sayings, as a player of pranks in the Eulenspiegel mode,
and as interlocutor of King Solomon. Markolf is the antithesis of the lordly
Solomon, who embodies measure and courtesy. Markolf seems at first to rep-
 Peasant Agen� Peasant Humanity 208
resent a crude foolishness but ultimately typifies practical folk knowledge of
the real world as against the grave, somewhat distant wisdom of the king. 19
The peasant's wisdom is not the cheerful, life-affirming earthiness of
what might be called the Zorba-the-Greek model. If we look at the collection
of poems entitled Li proverbe au vilain, containing observations on the world
and its ways, we find a grim, occasionally sardonic opinion of a world set up
to reward those who are already powerful. 20 Each of the 280 poems, written
between n74 and n91, consists of six lines followed by a moral. They all con­
clude with the words "so says the vilain." They contain cynically resigned ad­
vice on how to survive. A few describe the cruelty of oppressive lords, the rare
joy of having a good lord, the foolishness of hoping for something from the
wealthy. A basic instruction is that to be poor is unfortunate while to be rich
is to be happy:
A poor man labors all the time,
He thinks, works, and weeps,
He never laughs heartily;
The rich man laughs and sings,
He boasts of many things,
He is not troubled by anything,
Everyone is made glad if they already have something,
So says the vilain.21
Whatever their momentary success, the weak merely survive while the pow­
erful enjoy their existence. This is not an ethnographic transcription of what
peasants said in the privacy of their own gatherings but rather an artful com­
position that presents what purports to be a distillation of popular wisdom.
Virtuous Peasants
Fiction and legend present certain instances in which the peasant and
princely worlds intersect. In some peculiar distress, the members of the ruling
dynasty are forced to seek the aid of their erstwhile subjects. It is a sign of
desperation or of outcast status that nobles, such as Tristan and Yseult or
Yvain, take refuge in the wild and live like rustics. The Gregorius, by Hart­
mann von Aue (written ca. n87-89), depicts an extreme case of giving up
power and wealth: the hero, upon discovering his incestuous marriage to his
mother, chains himself to a desolate rock for seventeen years. 22 But in these
renunciations there is no connection with any human community: solitude is
itself an aspect of the radical distancing from civilization.
The best-known example of a royal personage taking refuge with peas.:tnts
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 209
occurs in connection with King Alfred and the cakes, a legend first found in
the late-tenth-century Vita Sancti Neoti. 23 During the battles against the Dan­
ish invaders, Alfred was said to have spent a few days incognito with a herds­
man and his wife. On one occasion he was berated by the wife for failing to
notice that the bread baking in the oven was burning, an insulting reproach
he bore meekly rather than revealing his true rank. In this brief encounter the
rustics are not especially virtuous but serve rather as an occasion to demon­
strate the king's exemplary kindness and wisdom.
More prolonged and emotionally charged contact between worlds takes
place in Hartmann's Der arme Heinrich, written about n95. The Swabian no­
ble Heinrich contracts leprosy and learns from the physicians of Salerno that
the only cure for the disease is the heart's blood ofa maiden willing to die for
him (an example of medication by self-sacrifice more serious than that in "Le
Vilain Mire"). 24 Abandoning hope, Heinrich goes to live in a forest clearing,
taking refuge with a free peasant tenant (whom Heinrich, in his happier days,
had the goodness and foresight to treat well). The peasant, a model of indus­
try and humble contentment, has an eight-year-old daughter. She is of noble
bearing and extremely fond of Heinrich, and he of her. In three years, as his
sufferings grow, Heinrich yields to the family's questions about his condition
and tells them of the impossible cure. Overcoming the resistance of both her
parents and the unhappy Heinrich, the girl demands to be brought to
Salerno. Heinrich complies, but as the doctor sharpens his knife, Heinrich is
so overcome by the cruelty of the sacrifice and by the girl's beauty that he for­
bids the doctor to continue. By God's mercy he is miraculously cured and
marries the heroic maiden. Here the girl is so exceptional as hardly to be con­
sidered a peasant, but her parents act within the plausible order of peasant
virtues: they are hard-working and extremely deferential to their lord (acqui­
escing, out of loyalty to him, to their daughter's determined self-sacrifice).
A Pomeranian legend of the late fifteenth century tells another tale of no­
bles taking refuge with peasants. 25 The family of Duke Erik was sent to a re­
mote area during a time of danger. His son, the future Duke Bogeslav, lived
as a commoner and received little favor from his mother, so that he was es­
sentially abandoned. A peasant named Hans Lange adopted him, and his
mother was happy to consent to the arrangement. The peasant was suffi­
ciently well-off to clothe the prince and give him a horse and sword. When
Duke Erik died, the stout-hearted Hans Lange convinced the nobles to rec­
ognize Bogeslav, even against his wicked mother's wishes. Bogeslav rewarded
his faithful guardian by giving him a free lease and exemption from taxes and
services.
A more dramatic transformation of fortune appears in the legendary ori-
 Peasant Agemy, Peasant Humanity 210
gin of the Pfemyslid rulers of Bohemia.26 The founder, Pfemysl, was said to
have been a plowman who became the first duke of the Bohemians in a fash­
ion slightly reminiscent of the story of Cincinnatus.27 According to the
Chronicae Bohemorum, written by Cosmas of Prague (who died in 1125), the
eponymous founder Boemus settled an empty land with a group of follow­
ers.28 In these happy early years, peace reigned and the Bohemians seem to
have paid deference to wise persons who resolved disputes rather than having
formal rulers. A certain Krak (Latinized in the Chronicle as Croccus) "arose
among them" sometime after Boemus. He left three daughters, all of them
with supernatural powers. The youngest, Libuse (Lubossa) is described as seer
or prophetess (phitonissa) and, like her father, was recognized as a wise con­
ciliator. A dispute between two notables over a field boundary, however,
erupted into denunciations of female rule when the loser refused to accept
Libuse's judgment. Bowing to the imputation of female weakness, Libuse
consented to marry and told messengers that her consort would be a man
whom they would find at a certain village and know by the markings of his
oxen. They followed her horse, which led them to Stadice (Ztadici), where
they found a peasant, Pfemysl, who (along with his oxen) answered Libuse's
description. Called thus to rule, Premysl abandoned the plow, released the
oxen, and stuck into the ground the hazelnut stick used to guide the animals,
which later turned into two fruitful trees. Cosmas does not describe Pfemysl
as taking office in accordance with any ceremony, but dwells on the divesti­
ture of his peasant clothes and the putting on of raiment appropriate to a
prince. Subsequent dukes of Bohemia were enthroned rather than crowned.
In Cosmas's time this ceremony took place at Vysehrad (across the river from
Prague Castle), where, according to Cosmas, Pfemysl's pouch and peasant
shoes made of bark were kept.29 The peasant garb and the transformation of a
peasant into a ruler thus symbolized the distinct, semi-magical origin of the
dynasty.
A briefer version of these events that may antedate Cosmas's rendition
was written by the monk Christian, author of a vita of the holy king of Bo­
hemia, Saint Wenceslas.30 According to Christian the ancient Bohemians
were decimated by a plague and sought the advice of a wise woman. She had
them establish the city of Prague and elect Pfemysl, "who was very skilled at
agriculture." The wise woman married the talented farmer, a union with
overtones of fertility and prophecy.
During the high and late Middle Ages Premysl was rivaled and ultimately
eclipsed by Saint Wenceslas, duke of Bohemia, who had been murdered in
929 or 935 by his brother Boleslav. Wenceslas became a royal saint on the
model of Stephen of Hungary, and the protector of a people (like Saint James
Pious and Exempla,ry Peasants 2n
of Compostela). His lance became part of the Pfemyslids' regalia. He was the
protector and embodiment of the Bohemians, who were "servants of Saint
Wenceslas" according to an ecclesiastical source. His likeness appeared on
ducal/royal seals and two-sided pennies from the early eleventh to early thir­
teenth centuries.31
The kings who followed the extinction of the Pfemyslid Dynasty in 1306
continued and even amplified royal devotion to Wenceslas. The Luxembourg
ruler Charles IV conferred on his newly founded university of Prague a seal
with the likeness of Saint Wenceslas and also named his son after the royal
saint, signifying the continuity of dynastic sanctity.32 But neither was the
memory of Premysl by any means obliterated. The shoes of Premyslid kept
at Vysehrad were ceremonially paraded before Charles IV and King Wences­
las IV on the mornings before their coronations.33
The legend of Premysl may have influenced the elaboration of stories
concerning Wenceslas (although it is hard to date the confection of the leg­
ends). Like Pfemysl, Wenceslas was reputed to have been a farmer (cui tan­
tum agricultore officium erat). According to the vita, he was accustomed to
work at night, secretly preparing from scratch, as it were, the elements of the
communion. While others slept, Wenceslas reaped, threshed, and milled
wheat, and also tended vineyards.34
Wenceslas was sufficiently identified with rustic occupations to serve as a
convenient vehicle for anti-Czech sentiment. A German guildsman of Prague
was punished in 1338 for refusing to mark the feast day "of that rustic," as he
called the holy prince.35 When the Premyslid line came to an end in 1306,
and with the death of Rudolf of Hapsburg imminent, the leader of the Haps­
burg party, Tobias of Bechyne, derisively suggested that those who feared
electing a foreigner to rule Bohemia go back to Stadice and find themselves
another peasant to elect, a remark that, according to Benes of Weitmiihl, got
him killed.36 Such flippant observations were taken seriously, evidence of the
sensitivity of the fourteenth-century Bohemians to the aura of rusticity sur­
rounding their royal cults.37
There are other legends (in Poland, for example) of the sudden elevation
of a rustic to rulership, or of coronation rituals (in Poland and Carinthia) in­
corporating gestures identifying the ruler with the peasantry.38 Another ex­
ample of the association of a peasant with a polity lies in the symbolism of
the city of Cologne. The Latin name of the city, Colonia, was thought to de­
rive from "rustic" ( colonus) and was given an allegorical meaning in the Mid­
dle Ages. Cologne was one of four cities of the Reich identified with peasants
in Peter von Andlau's Quaternion der deutschen Reichverfassung (1422), the
others being Constance, Regensburg, and Salzburg.39 Here the peasant sym-
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 212
bolized steadfastness and (interestingly enough) cleverness and resourceful­
ness. A heraldic symbol of late-medieval Cologne was a peasant with a scythe
and flail. This appears in the frontispiece of a chronicle of the city printed in
1499, in which the peasant is superimposed on an imperial eagle.40 The
Chronik van der hilligen stat van Coellen interprets the peasant as an emblem
of the city's holiness and God's solicitude. Far from being a strange or lowly
symbol, the heraldic peasant figures Cologne as the "holy peasant of the Re­
ich." Indeed the spiritual work of God that nourishes the soul is likened to
the labor of the noble plowman who feeds all, laity and clergy.41
Such images of the holy labor of the peasant were characteristic of the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, as we shall see, but the peasant symbol
of Cologne was well known in an earlier era. In the late thirteenth century it
was sufficiently embarrassing to cause Godefrit Hagen, author of a rhymed
urban chronicle, to devote some lines to denying the connection. The name
of the town has nothing to do with peasants, who are gross, ambitious, and
unworthy, he insists.42
The most famous historical example of the virtuous peasant, and indeed
the single most renowned medieval peasant, was Joan of Arc, the rustic vi­
sionary of Lorraine who instilled confidence in the dauphin and his armies
and rescued the city of Orleans from the English siege.43 That a female and a
peasant should receive heavenly communications from Saint Michael :he
Archangel touching the salvation of France is a dramatic example of the m­
version of power, the unlooked-for triumph of the meek. It was also a tri­
umph not of rebellion but of the literal legitimation of the monarch. Yet it is
Joan as woman, or really as young woman, a virgin, that forms the essential
paradox, not her social rank. True, it is of key importance that she was well
below the social status of plausible political actors.44 In later years attempts
were made to deny that she was of rustic origin, and even to claim she was of
royal birth (an illegitimate child of Isabella of Bavaria and Louis of Orleans,
for example).45 But it is as "La Pucelle," "the Maid of Orleans," that she was
celebrated and remembered. Status was behind sex and age in her paradoxical
image. What impressed her contemporaries was that she was a girl of more or
less humble birth and not that she a was peasant. Her divine inspiration con­
ferred a paradoxical heroism of military vocation and extraordinary fortitude.
These also could be considered to contradict peasant character: that a peas­
ant should prove brave or adept at warfare was in the nature of things un­
likely and, if it occurred, deeply disturbing. Nevertheless, in her own self­
fashioning it was as "The Maid" that she warned the duke of Bedford that
God had shown her that Charles was the true king of France and as "The
Blessed Maid" that she won the praise of Christine de Pisan.46
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 213
Noble Peasants: Productive, Simple, Pious
Beginning in the late fourteenth century, particularly in Germany, praise for
the peasant poured out. Poems, plays, and exhortations lauded their diligence
and selfless toil. Much of this Bauernlob amounted to a rediscovery of the de­
pendence of all of society on peasant labor, a theme we have examined in the
context of the Three Orders and mutuality. Labor could, it is true, be re­
garded with contempt or considered a penitential duty incumbent on a
cursed segment of the population. From quite early on, however, the idea
that such necessary work was in some (not merely negative) sense spiritually
beneficial received at least grudging assent.
Texts that most bitterly satirized or denounced the late-medieval peasant
denied that he performed any useful labor. The Neidhart tradition depended
on an image of lazy, pretentious, and, above all, useless villagers for its more
dehumanizing forms of satire. In contrast, literature in praise of peasants,
Bauernlob, extolled the "noble peasant" whose work nourishes the world.
What this literature expresses is thus not merely a neutral awareness of the
peasant's social role but a stylized form of gratitude. His labor and its fruits
confer on the peasant a certain nobility that is accentuated in the Bauernlob
genre.
In about 1350 the poet Heinrich "Der Teichner" wrote:
Thus I praise the peasant,
Who can feed all the world.
He labors with his plow,
Who can compare with him?
Thus the poor peasant is better than you rich people.47
Contemporary with Der Teichner is the well-known image of the pious
"friend of God" in the work of the mystic Johannes Tauler (died 1361). Here
what the peasant wins by his labors is his own bread rather than food for the
entire world, but the work itself is of sufficient merit to obviate the need to go
to church.48
Hans Rosenplilt of Nuremberg, composer of satiric Carnival plays that
mocked the stupidity and boorishness of peasants, also wrote of the "noble
plowman" in a song-poem, "Der Bauern Lob" (ca. 1450). In all God's cre­
ation, none is so truly noble as the plowman. The author has no better friend,
for the peasant has fed him and his parents. He praises "the noble, pious peas­
ant" (den edlen /rumen Paur) because "it is often hard labor for him when he
goes with his plow, with which he feeds all the world, lords, townsmen, and
 Peasant Agenry, Peasant Humani-ty 214
artisans. If there were no peasant, things would be in a sad condition." 49 The
peasant is praiseworthy because his difficult labor feeds all and makes him
dose to God.
The true nobility of the peasant is even more strongly emphasized in the
late-fifteenth-century anonymous Franconian "Poem on the First Noble­
man." There is no prince so worthy of praise as the peasant who is truly no­
ble, for all the world lives off his labor.50 The poem concludes by warning
peasants against trying to better their circumstances, for their way of life
shields them from temptations of excess and idleness by which God is forgot­
ten. The spiritual benefit accrues not only through labor but through sim­
plicity: "Peasants seldom go to church, but this does not disturb God. He re­
wards them for their work with a healthy body and an eternal crown." 51
In this instance the virtue or nobility of the peasant consists of work, im­
puted piety (through work), and austerity. It is often hard to separate exalta­
tion of the peasant for his piety from the antique theme of exaltation of the
simple life. Godliness is more than mere sobriety or the mere absence of
temptation, far from the corrupt world of city, court, and civilization. Texts
such as the "Poem on the First Nobleman" differ from the Arcadian dream of
the pastorale, for the former evoke an image of healthful and productive toil
rather than happy idleness, the labor-intensive world of the Georgics rather
than the world of the carefree Eclogues or their Theocritan predecessors.
From the examples above, all of which share a recognition of the impor­
tance of the peasant's productivity, two conceptions of the nobility of the
peasant's labor emerge, conceptions that may at times overlap. On the one
hand, work ennobles the peasant both because it is of such great service to so­
ciety and because it is intrinsically improving for the laborer himself, both
physically and morally (if only negatively on the moral side, in that it keeps
him from the wickedness of wealth). On the other hand, work ennobles the
peasant through the suffering it causes him; its merit lies in its pain more
than its productivity. His work is unremunerated; it entails arbitrary mis­
treatment; it earns God's mercy and the inversion of worldly power and com­
fort only in the next life. Productivity was praiseworthy within a secular set
of values, but it was through suffering that the peasant approached a condi­
tion of sanctity.
SIMPLICITY
The basic text in praise of the simple but industrious life of rural labor is
book 2 of Virgil's Georgics, beginning with line 458:
0 happy husbandmen! too happy should they come to know their blessings! for
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 215
whom, far from the dash of arms, most righteous Earth, unbidden pours forth
from her soil an easy sustenance. What though no stately mansion with proud
portals disgorges at dawn from all its halls a tide of visitors, though they never
gaze at doors inlaid with lovely tortoise-shell or at raiment tricked with gold or
at bronzes of Ephyra, though their white wool be not stained with Assyrian dye,
or their dear oil's service spoiled by cassia? Yet theirs is repose without care, and
a life that knows no fraud, but is rich in treasures manifold. Yea, the ease of
broad domains, caverns, and living lakes, and cool vales, the lowing of the kine,
and soft slumbers beneath the trees-all are theirs. They have woodland glades
and the haunts of game; a youth hardened to toil and inured to scanty fare;
worship of gods and reverence for age; among them, as she quitted the earth,
Justice planted her latest steps. 52
Those whom Virgil addresses are not at leisure and are not carefree. The
earth, while yielding her riches willingly, still requires toil. The virtues of the
simple life are in large measure negative: freedom from the trauma of great
affairs, especially war, and removal from the debilitating allure of luxury. Yet
rural simplicity does have certain tangible rewards: health, repose, and an
austere harmony.
Horace's Epode 2 is another eloquent, though not completely serious, evo­
cation of rural simplicity.53 The poem begins: "Happy the man who, far away
from business cares, like the pristine race of mortals, works his ancestral acres
with his steers." Again the farm's virtue is partially its distance from the tribu­
lations of war and the intrigue of the Forum. This particular epode includes
the same images of productive labor that Virgil employs throughout the
Georgics: lowing cattle, pruning and grafting, straining honey, and other use­
ful and innocent tasks. The modest wife milks or prepares "unbought repasts"
from the farm's own produce. In place of exotic delicacies (Lucrine oysters or
Ionian pheasant), there is sorrel gathered from the meadow, or the odd sacri­
ficial lamb. The recital of simple joys is put in the mouth of the moneylender
Alfius as he is on the point of renouncing the city, but the debts he calls in
upon the Ides of this month, he lends out again by the Kalends of the next,
changing his mind and reinvesting his shady gains.
In other instances, of course, Horace quite sincerely praises the simple life
of his farm in the Sabine countryside, but in Horace as well as Virgil, the
farmer is a landowner or a tenant of substantial means and independence.
Horace's "Beatus ille" imagines the labor of faithful slaves as one of the pleas­
ant aspects for the farm owner to contemplate, along with the dutiful oxen.
Influential and always well known, images of rural rectitude nevertheless
had only a limited resonance in the Middle Ages, in part because of the rela­
tive absence of small independent proprietors, or at least the absence of such
 Peasant Agen� Peasant Humanity 216
a class in the literary imagination. Simplicity carried great advantages. Am­
brose remarked, in a passage later cited by the Cistercian Odo of Cheriton,
"the poor man in his hut, wealthy in conscience, sleeps safer upon the earth
than the rich man in his gold and purple."54 Petrarch quotes Virgil, acknowl­
edging that Justice did indeed leave her last traces among the rustics, but that
was long ago. Now they are thoroughly wicked and less likely than anyone to
return to the good example of the past.55 Chaucer, in his version of the story
of the patient Griselda, describes the idyllic situation of her small village,
whose poor folk live off their own labor, by which the earth yields its abun­
dance.56 As Henrik Specht has pointed out, however, the image of quiet, hon­
orable contentment is Chaucer's addition to sources (Petrarch and the Livre
Grise/dis) that mere ly state that Griselda lived in a sparsely inhabited village.57
The fifteenth-century humanist Maffeo Vegio, author of bitter antipeasant
satires, expressed amazement that Virgil (who was in all other respects his
model) should admire rural life.58
In the Christian tradition, the austere benefits of the hardships of rustic
life greatly outweighed any notion of the simple joys of farming. In part this
emphasis stemmed from the Christian teachings of the moral superiority of
the poor and helpless. To some extent it repeated the classical commonplace
that the absence of inducements to vice was in itself beneficial. Lactantius
praised the poor whose faith is stronger on the metaphorical march toward
heaven because they are not weighed down with the baggage of worldly am­
bitions and temptations.59 The issue was not rural versus urban but poor ver­
sus rich, and the poor meant those below the modest landowner.
An additional reason for the early-medieval lack of interest in the health­
giving and pleasant ways of the country was that labor was more closely
joined to pain in the Christian tradition. God's curse upon Adam was that he
should feed himself only with great effort, no longer with the ease and nat­
ural bounty of Eden. The Middle Ages could certainly praise simple rustic
joys, but more intensely imagined a painful productivity and a hard simplic­
ity. Psalm 127, it is true, speaks of the happiness of those who eat the labor of
their own hands (more unbought meals), and was cited often in medieval di­
dactic and exegetical works. Honorius Augustodunensis invoked this psalm in
praising the simplicity of the rustics' existence, but the spiritual benefit of la­
bor is also derived from the sweat required of the rustics to support the peo­
ple of God.60 The Franconian poem concerning "the first nobleman'' (cited
above) does claim that among the rewards of the peasant's life is a healthy
body by virtue of avoiding the vices of the wealthy, but this is unusual.
The advantages of simplicity are more typically conveyed by a popular
story of a poor man who arrived in Chartres without so much as a penny to
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 217
obtain lodging. After an unpleasant night outdoors, he blessed his indigent
condition upon learning that the inn where he would have stayed had he had
the money had burned to the ground in the night.61 The negative virtues of
simplicity stem not from a deliberate decision to leave the city and its vices,
in the Roman manner, but from unwilling but beneficial deprivation; poverty
rather than renunciation. As such, the advantages of simplicity resemble a
gentler version of the Isidorian formulation that servitude was instituted as a
result of the Fall to restrain those of weak character from the vices they would
sink into without some external coercion.62
Astuteness was invidiously contrasted with pious simplicity in the New
Testament, most pertinently in 2 Corinthians n:3: "But I fear lest, as the ser­
pent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall
from the simplicity that is in Christ" (astutia as opposed to simplicitas). Lack
of education was the dearest evidence of a simple nature. In a famous passage
of his Confessions, Augustine recalls his chagrin at learning about the ascetic
heroism of the uneducated monks who "storm the gates of heaven'' while he
and his friends seemed incapable of action.63 Saint Jerome was the paramount
source for a notion of holy simplicity conceived in terms of "rusticity." In a
passage from Letter 52, which would become a locus classicus, Jerome states
that "holy rusticity'' is preferable to sinful eloquence. The context is a com­
parison of those brothers who confuse sanctity with ignorance and better ed­
ucated brothers who confuse holine ss with adroit use of words. By rusticitas
Jerome means rough inarticulateness, a characteristic not limited to rural
folk. But the passage would later be understood to expre ss a preference for
simple piety, e specially that of literal rustics.64 Rusticitas in later centurie s
could simply mean boorishness, especially lack of proper religious reverence,
as in Caesarius of Arles; this deficiency was not necessarily limited to rural la­
borers but was more closely identified with them than with others.65 Martin
of Braga (fl. 556-72), in his "De corre ctione rusticorum," contributed signif­
icantly to the identification of countrymen as essentially pagan.66 By rustici
Martin clearly meant rural folk whose crude ways exemplify credulity and de­
liberate paganism, not simple Christian piety.
During the Middle Ages, holy simplicity was not the tranquil pleasure of
the small proprietor but a result of labor, poverty, and suffering. This is espe­
cially, although not exclusively, a Franciscan teaching. The German Minorite
known as Brother Ludovicus stated that peasants (agricolae) were beloved of
God by reason of their endless labor and unjust treatment at the hands of
their secular masters.67 Misery on earth gives the peasants a claim to spiritual
merit, and this misery consists of both toil and oppression. Heinrich von
Burgus, a Tyrolese poet writing in the early fourteenth century under the in-
 Peasant Agenry Peasant Humanity 218
fluence of the Franciscans, described poverty as the hell of the peasants, but
added that through this pain they become worthy in God's sight. They suffer
and their labor is hard, but their pain is a sign of God's particular care. 68
Hugo von Trimberg relates misery on earth to wealth in God's Kingdom, and
deems misery not as something "natural" but as the result of human injus­
tice. 69
Spiritual benefit rather than secular simplicity was what interested those
who extolled the rustic in the Middle Ages. Such benefit derived from three
things chiefly, none of which produced any special reward here on earth: la­
bor that feeds the world, poverty (rather than comfortable simplicity), and
oppression. Suffering is what gives the peasantry a spiritual advantage, and
with this suffering is included the labor of Adam's children, the indigence of
peasant life, and exploitation by those above them.
SPIRITUAL BENEFIT
What was the nature of this spiritual advantage? Not the intrinsic satisfaction
of an austere life of virtue but the promise of heaven. The Epistle of James
(2:5) asks rhetorically, "Hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in
faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love
him?" From this it appears that simplicity (poverty) has more than the nega­
tive benefit of shielding one from temptation but is in itself a blessed condi­
tion. The words of the epistle would be repeated in medieval sermons and di­
dactic literature, by the English Dominican John of Bromyard and by
70
Michael of Northgate's Ayenbite ofInwyt, for example.
A passage from Honorius's Elucidarium (ca. noo), noted earlier, encapsu­
lates quite succinctly the spiritual advantages not just of the poor but of rus­
tic laborers specifically. In the dialogue the disciple asks the master about
what the prospects in the next life are for peasants. Most of them will be
saved, he is informed, because of the simplicity of their lives and because of
their toil (literally "sweat", which recalls the destiny of Adam), which feeds
all.71 Addressing the rustics in his Speculum Ecclesie, Honorius offers a vision
of what they will earn by their honest labors and obedience to their priests: a
heaven of flowers, with splendid odors and thousands of joyful inhabitants.
72
Yet in the Imago mundi, in connection with human history and genealogy,
Honorius repeats the commonplace of Noah's curse and the descent of the
unfree (servi) from Ham. 73 It was quite possible to maintain both opinions:
that peasants are cursed through their ancestor Ham, and yet objects of God's
solicitude.
The contradiction between the peasants as cursed and peasants as blessed
is more apparent than real, for there were several avenues of resolution. Their
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 219
misery and what we have called the failure of mutuality (unrewarded labor)
could be derived from both hereditarily transmitted misdeeds and expiatory
toil. Their labor is a penance containing both a positive or forward-looking
component (the hope of heaven) and a negative origin in sin (Noah's curse).
In fact this is generally true of humankind: all are lost with Adam but re­
deemed with Christ, cursed but saved. 74
Another way of encompassing both positions was to acknowledge the
peasants' theoretical moral advantage while bemoaning their greed, envy, or
other manifestations of essential baseness that prevent them from utilizing
that advantage. We saw this dialectic in Stephen of Fougeres's Livre de ma­
nieres, written in the n7os. 75 After complaining that the peasant receives little
though he maintains the other estates, Stephen observes that the greater his
impoverishment, the greater is his merit if he bears his misfortunes with for­
titude. But in real life the peasants complain constantly and show ingratitude
toward God, so that they fail to profit from what would otherwise be to their
advantage.
The spiritual privileges of poverty and the failure to realize them con­
cerned several thirteenth-century observers of the social order in relation to
God's purpose. A sermon directed at peasants, supposedly by Berthold von
Regensburg but probably by a later Franciscan author, states that they are
given lowly status here on earth but would be exalted in heaven.76 Another
sermon attributed to Berthold speaks of Christ plowing the "field" of Chris­
tianity Himself, not wanting anyone else to carry out this labor. The wood
and iron of the plow recall the wood and nails of the cross. 77 Other sermons
note, however, that although the rustics receive spiritual benefit from their
hard lives, there have been few peasants who were saints. Moreover, they are
given to cursing, jealousy, and dishonesty. 78 Brother Ludovicus pointed to the
special merit of the peasants in God's eyes but regretted their propensity to
theft, mendacity, drunkenness, and blasphemy. 79 The poor are beloved by
God, and woe to those who oppress them, for they are the apple of His eye
(Zechariah 2:8). But alas, so many of them are ungrateful and dishonest, for­
getting God. They are the targets of Jeremiah 5:4: "Perhaps these are poor and
foolish, that know not the way of the Lord, the judgment of their God. "80
A survey of estates by Guillaume Le Clerc entitled Besant de Dieu de­
nounces the poor for their envy, arrogance, and rebelliousness, which waste
the advantages they have over the rich in entering the kingdom of heaven. 81
The same sentiments appear in the Spanish prince Don Juan Manuel's Libro
de los estados except that here the characteristic sins of the labradores are lazi­
ness and stupidity. 82
All these instances imply or assert that the peasants' invincibly wicked
 Peasant Agenry Peasant Humanity 220
character causes them to depreciate their substantial spiritual capital. Some
observers, however, represented the spiritual advantage of the peasants as a re­
alizable potential rather than an irrecoverably squandered resource: if they did
not seek to alter their status, complain, or act wickedly, they would receive
the benefit of their closeness to God. According to a Spanish "Dance of
Death" poem of the mid- or late fourteenth century, for example, the peas­
ants will win eternal glory if they perform their work honestly, not seeking to
encroach on their neighbor's land (by plowing an extra furrow across the
boundary, for example).83 Or again, in the Buch der Rugen, peasants are
blessed by reason of their labors but must remain obedient, not rising above
themselves.84 In the passages mentioned earlier, however, the peasants have
demonstrated that they are inclined not to fulfill the conditions for salvation.
In such cases the consequences of their low nature, or of Noah's curse, are not
really affected by divine care for the humble.
Other writers, however, were less grudging, less preoccupied with the
shortcomings of the subjugated, and more impressed with the contrasting
fortunes of the rich and an undifferentiated "poor" that included peasants.
According to Peter of Blois (died 1204), it is "the weakest of men, who will in­
herit the kingdom of God and the Holy Land: the two Jerusalems, terrestrial
and celestial. "85 This evokes the accounts of the discovery of the Holy Lance
during the siege of Antioch on the First Crusade. Raymond of Aguilers, chap­
lain of Count Raymond of Toulouse, described how Saint Andrew appeared
before the "rustic pauper" Peter Bartholomew, revealing where the lance was
hidden. Peter asked if someone else might be chosen since his poverty made
him ashamed to present the lance before the army. Saint Andrew replied that
he was elected by God not in spite of his lowly condition but because of it.
The poor surpass in merit and grace those who precede them on earth, just
as gold comes before silver.86 More graphically, away from the context of the
crusade, Jacques de Vitry, in an exemplum, describes the sufferings of a peas­
ant shivering in the cold, who comforts himself with the thought that in
heaven he will be able to warm his feet whenever he wishes by extending
them a little over the pit of hell, where the rich will be burning.87
In these instances it is not labor or even seigneurial oppression but
poverty that confers spiritual superiority. What is most impressive is the re­
versal of fortunes that occurs in moving from one world to the next. Rustics
are here joined to the condition of the destitute poor rather than constituting
a separate class of productive if subjugated laborers. Mark 10:31, "But many
that are first, shall be last: and the last, first" is a biblical maxim that warns
the rich and powerful and exalts the impoverished. In 1 Corinthians 1:26-29,
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 221
Saint Paul says that not many are called, and that God has chosen the foolish
and weak of the world for His Kingdom.88
Some authors, such as Francese Eiximenis, would exclude the peasants
from the category of the blessed poor by reason of their greed and impiety,
while others considered them part of the general social category of the poor.
In the early-medieval period the image of reversal would dominate. Recount­
ing the life of Saint Portianus, Gregory of Tours remarks that God has ar­
ranged for the poverty of this world to serve as the way toward heaven, "so
that the poor rustic [rusticus] can go there when he that is dressed in the pur­
ple cannot."89 The "just pauper" will reach heaven, whereas the unjust power­
ful in this life will be lost, according to Hrabanus Maurus.90 Another Car­
olingian poet contrasted this world, where the rich rejoice in acquiring wealth
while beggars suffer from hunger, with the world to come, where the wealthy
who "consumed the tears of orphans" will lie in Tartarus while the paupers
will find bliss.91
Another influential biblical image appears in Matthew 19:24, likening the
difficulty of the rich entering heaven to that of a camel passing through the
eye of a needle. In a sermon on human misery, Gautier de Coincy (writing in
the thirteenth century) likens the time of the rich on earth to a pleasant sum­
mer, to be followed by a long winter in hell, while the poor dwell in heaven.
The rich are like the camel, too plump to enter the realm of felicity, but the
thin, ill-nourished poor will have no difficulty.92 A French treatise written in
about 1500 concerning the vices of the different estates was inspired, the
anonymous author says, by his meditation on the "very hard and weighty
words" of Matthew 19:24.93 The peasants (laboureurs) receive the promise of
eternal life and enjoy God's favor over the rich.94
Subordination, earthly misery, and dishonor are shared by peasant and
destitute alike and confer a certain merit by themselves. How then can one
explain why very few peasants are numbered among the many saints the
Church recognizes?95 Andre Vauchez writes of a medieval "hagiocracy," an
aristocratically dominated order of saints. Of those canonized between n98
and 1431, 60 percent were nobles while only 8 percent came from the lower
classes.96 A sociological study of 1,280 Catholic saints of identifiable social ori­
gin for the entire history of the Church showed similar results: 7 percent (a
total of 92 individuals) were peasants while about 70 percent were nobles.97
The proportion of peasant saints who lived in the fifteenth century is notice­
ably greater, according to the ambitious study undertaken by Donald Wein­
stein and Rudolph Bell: 13.3 percent, as opposed to 4.7 percent for the four­
teenth century and 6.9 percent for the sixteenth.98 This corresponds to what
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 222
appears to be the apogee of both the hatred of peasants and their reputation
for intrinsic piety.
Throughout the Middle Ages, however, noble saints dominated, espe­
cially north of the Mediterranean, while royal saints, although found all over
Europe, were especially visible in the East. 99 The figures changed somewhat
after n50, when movements advocating poverty, asceticism, and the apostolic
life gained strength, but the almost magical quality of high birth, and the bet­
ter renunciatory narrative that such rank created, meant that the peasantry
made no significant dent in the noble domination of the beatified. If the
peasant's way of life removed him from temptation, it also allowed him little
opportunity for heroic abstinence.
Here one must distinguish between striking individual examples of re­
nunciation and the basic spiritual condition of an entire class. The peasantry
was widely considered to hold certain privileges with respect to salvation, but
not with respect to individual spiritual distinction meriting sainthood. 100 The
individual heroic piety requisite to sainthood was manifest and dramatic
when there was more to renounce. The aristocratic saint could on the one
hand counter the prevailing violence and pride of his class and on the other
hand gain saintly stature from attributed aristocratic virtues (noble bearing,
restraint, or sternness), especially the high medieval saint, who was seldom
the holy fool, hermit, or simpleton so prominent in desert monasticism and
the Orthodox world.
But some peasants did achieve sainthood, albeit proportionally few, as
noted above. A Saint Wulfstan of the tenth or eleventh century (not either of
the two sainted bishops of that name) died while cutting hay and so served
as the patron of haymakers. Saint Guy of Anderlecht and Saint Engelmar of
Bavaria were patrons of the peasants. 101 Saint Gaudry, a peasant who dwelt
near Toulouse sometime before 900, was invoked in Languedoc, Rousillon,
and the Pyrenees against destructive rain. 102 The most widely diffused cult of
a peasant saint was that of Saint Isidore, supposedly a Spanish tenant farmer
who died in n30. 103 Isidore's qualities, according to a life written in the thir­
teenth century, were diligence, modesty, and piety rather than any heroic or
miraculous virtues. Isidore served the same master faithfully over the course
of his life. He and his wife abstained from sexual relations after the death of
their son. Isidore the Farmer is the patron saint of Madrid, and his feast day
remains a grand civic and folkloric occasion. Festive plays about him were
composed by Calderon and Lope de Vega. Isidore enjoyed a certain reputa­
tion in Iberia and perhaps Germany during the Middle Ages, but his real
popularity came after he was formally canonized in 1622 (in the company of
Ignatius Loyola, Phillip Neri, Theresa of Avila, and Francis Xavier). After his
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 223
canonization, the cult spread to the rest of Europe and survives with some
vigor in Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
Poland, Isidore served as the model of peasant obedience and acceptance. Re­
viving medieval instructions to the peasantry, Andrzej Goldonowski's Short
Lessons on the Duties of Christian Farmers (1629) exhorted serfs to obey their
masters in order to win a heavenly reward. Their suffering cleanses them of
sin and preserves them from the excesses that afflict the gentry. 104
Christ and the Pious Plowman
In previous chapters I touched on the fairly complex image of the plowman,
an emblem of productivity but also of the wickedness of Cain, the first man
to till the earth. That all of society was fed by the peasant's labor was, of
course, a commonplace, but the symbolism of the plow in this connection
was particularly popular in German and English literature. The father in
Helmbrecht summarizes his paean to agricultural labor by the statement that
many a king owes his crown to the toil of the plowman. The peasant's plow
relieves humanity of hunger, according to Hans Rosenplilt, Der Teichner,
and an anonymous sung dialogue between a knight and peasant. io5
The plow was a token of secular productivity but also of spiritual nour­
ishment. A song in the Colmar Collection of the fifteenth century joins the
peasant and the priest, both of whom nourish, the former with the plow. 106
The metaphor of preaching as plowing can be traced back to Eucherius of
Lyon in the fifth century, and it was popularized in Gregory the Great's
Moralia. 107 But such similarities do not necessarily imply anything about the
people who actually engage in nonmetaphorical plowing. Indeed, the plow­
man was often invidiously represented in terms of degraded sublapsarian la­
bor. The fratricide Cain was associated with the plow in Der Renner, and
shown furiously and foolishly plowing with a mixed team in the Holkham
Bible (put together between 1315 and 1321). 108 Yet the Bible itself mentions the
plow and plowing in the context of virtuous labor contrasted with idleness
(Proverbs 12:u and 20:4), peaceful productivity (Isaiah 28:24-29), and spiri­
tual over literal interpretation of Scripture (1 Corinthians 9:10).
The plowman thus functioned as a symbol of both virtue and wicked­
ness. 109 Adam, although more often shown as delving than as plowing, com­
bined both these worthy and unworthy qualities: punished by this hard labor
for his disobedience (a curse transmitted to his posterity), he was also a sym­
bol of earthly labor in anticipation of the spiritual labor of Christ.
The plowman could be conceived in even more exalted terms, as an em­
blem not only of the preacher's labor but of Christ Himself John 15=1, "I am
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humaniry 224

the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman" (agricola in the Vulgate),
suggested images of humility, labor, and preaching that were applied to the
second person of the Trinity. Carrying the cross was likened to laboring at the
plow.110 The wooden cross with its iron nails was linked to the plow in the re­
marks (noted above) attributed to Berthold von Regensburg but also as early
as Bede.111 A Byzantine hymn translated into Latin in the ninth century de­
scribed Mary as the "nourisher of the loving plowman," the first instance of
the metaphor of Christ as plowman.112 This becomes a popular theme in
German texts. In Der arme Heinrich, when the young maiden argues with her
parents over her decision to sacrifice herself, she contrasts marriage to a rich
peasant (their desire but something she would hate and lament) to embracing
God, the "free peasant" (vrier buman) who seeks her hand. His "plow moves
steadily," and He will be her protector.113 Christ "the faithful peasant" re­
stored the blighted fields according to a fourteenth-century Swiss life of
Mary.114 Christ is both plow and plowman according to the Franconian poet
Muskatblut (fl. 1415-38). The plowshare is the cross that Christ dragged to
His death for our redemption, but Christ Himself is the true plowman who
has restored us after the fall of Adam, the first plowman.115 In praising the
noble peasant, Peter Frey, also in the fifteenth century, cites images of Christ
as the good shepherd (John rn:34) as well as God the "husbandman" (John
15=1}, ·which Frey gives as ackermann (plowman), adding that Christians
should not doubt that God compared Himself to a peasant.116
Christ was also likened to a gardener, following John 20:15, in which
Mary Magdalen mistook the resurrected Christ for the gardener who tended
the graveyard. Christ planted the seeds of virtue in her breast according to
Gregory the Great, an image well known throughout the Middle Ages.117
Christ is shown with a spade in an alabaster sculpture now in the Victoria
and Albert Museum (Fig. n).118
None of this necessarily exalts earthly plowmen. The ambiguous attitude
toward work could accommodate metaphorical use of images of plowing and
agricultural labor applied to a spiritually superior form of work such as
preaching. The selfless daughter in Der arme Heinrich might liken Christ to a
plowman, but the whole point of her speech is that she rejects marriage to an
earthly plowman. The most famous example of the plowman who not only
is likened to Christ but is an emblem of piety in himself is the protagonist of
Langland's Piers Plowman. This complex masterpiece can be approached as a
social satire, as an allegorical vision, and as a proposal for religious and moral
reform. The figure of Piers sanctifies agricultural work, although the book 11. Christ with a spade. English alabaster

also extols a rather different Franciscan ethic of renunciation by which char­ sculpture, fifteenth century, now in the Victoria
ity, wandering, and "kindness" are preferred to labor in the world.119 and Albert Museum. Reproduced by permission
of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 226
Piers is a free peasant, but if his land really amounts to only a half acre
(VI.106), he must depend almost entirely on hiring himself out for wages. 120
The plowmen, who appear first in the Dreamer's vision of estates of society,
labor strenuously to obtain what the rich "wastours with glotonye 1estruyeth"
(Prol. vv. 20-22). By means of their natural intelligence ("Kynde Wit"), the
Commons established plowmen to till and to labor honestly for the benefit
of all (Prol. vv. nS-20). 121 Earthly necessity confers, or at least corresponds
to, a high spiritual status. Plowmen are the first to receive pardon from Truth,
who instructs Piers to stay at home and plow (VII.r-8). Piers himself is
equated with Peter and Christ when the Dreamer asks where and how
he might find Charity. Neither by words nor by work, responds the Soul
(Anima), but through will alone, "and that knoweth no clerk ne creature on
erthe / But Piers the Plowman-Petrus id est christus' (XV.2rr-r2). 122 Toward
the end of the work, Christ is seen dressed in Piers's armor and riding on an
ass (as on Palm Sunday), preparing to joust with the Devil (the Crucifixion)
(XVIII.10-36). The Dreamer falls asleep in church and has a vision of Piers
stained with blood, carrying a cross and bearing the likeness of Jesus:
I fel eftsoones aslepe-and sodeynly me mette
That Piers the Plowman was peynted al blody,
And com in with a cros bifore the comune peple,
And right lik in alle lymes to Oure Lord Jesu.
(XIX.5-8)
Langland's poem would make the image of the pious and virtuous plow­
man familiar from Wales to Bohemia. John Ball's sermon at Blackheath in
r38r and the letters circulated by the organizers of the English Rising appro­
priate from Piers Plowman the language of complaint against the clergy, the
fundamental equality of humanity, and the figure (and name) of the virtuous
plowman. The modifications embodied in the C Version seem to reflect
Langland's response to the unpleasantness of r38r and the unwanted use of
his vision. 123
Langland was not mounting a direct challenge to the existing order of so­
ciety. He affirmed the Three Orders model while lamenting its overthrow by
a money-driven economy and by an ethic in which everything was for sale,
labor included, and loyalty and mutuality yielded before self-interest and
greed. 124 Langland offered a quite traditional counsel of obedience, especially
to the hated Statute and Ordinance of Laborers of r349 and r35r, which froze
wages to combat what otherwise would have been the economic negotiating
advantage of a smaller labor pool after the demographic collapse caused by
the Black Death. Langland was not especially opposed to serfdom, though
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 227
recommending to lords that they treat their serfs ( bondemen) decently
(VI.45). In fact, as David Aers has noted, the villeins were not really central
to the poem. 125
Landless but free laborers occupied considerably more of Langland's con­
cern, for they embodied his distress over idleness and greed. Once they were
diligent, but now they formed an undisciplined class given to loitering in tav­
erns. In fact they do work, but they profit from their labor in a way that vio­
lates the Statute and undermines the fabric of society.
On the one hand, Langland has a "hard" attitude toward work whereby
those who do not labor and produce will starve. According to Hunger, he who
feeds himself with his faithful labors is blessed in body and soul, an assertion
followed by the first words of Psalm r27:2 (VI.250-52). The worthy (espe­
cially crippled) poor are to be distinguished from the healthy idle class, who
ask for consideration merely for their insolent convenience (VI.n5- 98). 126
On the other hand, beginning with Passus VII, Piers rejects the stern exalta­
tion of work in favor of voluntary poverty, a Franciscan ideal of charity and
rootlessness. Rather than preoccupying oneself with labor in the world, one
should hold it in contempt. "Si quis amat Christum mundum non diligit is­
tum" (If a man cares for Christ he will not cleave to this world) (XIV.59). In
the same Passus, Patience states that Christians should hold all in common,
none desiring his own gain (XIV.20r). It follows that the beggar is to be em­
braced not because he is "genuinely needy" but out of fraternal love and
in Christ's name. Poverty is in itself beneficial to the soul and advances its
admission to heaven. 127 Langland was in certain respects quite reactionary,
rejecting the dominion of "Mede" that reduces everything to a monetary
transaction, as exemplified both in the demands of the laborers over wages
and in the cold calculations and applied ethics of the newly rich and their
apologists. 128
It does not in any way detract from the power and originality of Lang­
land's poem to locate it among medieval images of the plowman, piety, and
Christ. Piers is much more active and individual than his predecessors, so
that the key step mentioned above is certainly more vividly exemplified with
him than previously, namely the change from a general religious symbolism
of the plow to attributing virtue to actual plowmen in the world. But it is not
quite true, Elizabeth Kirk's statement to the contrary notwithstanding, that
previously the plowman had been exclusively identified with wickedness
(Cain), nor is it true that Langland was the first to offer the revolutionary im­
age of the virtuous plowman. 129 Edward Wheatley has pointed to the fable
"De Duello militis et aratoris'' in the widely diffused compilation of Latin
school texts put together (probably in England) during the twelfth century,
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 228
the Liber Catonianus. 130 The story was not part of the Aesopian collections
that go back to Phaedrus but appears to have been added by the probable
compiler of the Liber Catonianus, Walter, chaplain to Henry II. A wicked sol­
dier accuses a wealthy citizen of robbing the public treasury and proposes to
fight a duel to back up his assertion. Not only is the elderly man not capable
of fighting, but only his loyal tenant, a plowman, is willing to fight on his be­
half. The plowman defeats the soldier by striking him on the elbow as the
solider prepares to dispatch him. Explanations of the moral and allegorical
significance of the tale appeared in the Esopus moralizatus and the Auctores
octo commentaries. They explained the citizen as essentially the well-inten­
tioned ordinary Christian, the soldier as the devil, and the plowman as simple
liberating faith. A fifteenth-century interpretation says that the plowman is
Christ, the enemy of the devil. Christ arrayed in Piers's armor (XVIII.10-26)
may represent a borrowing from the fable.
The use of the plowman as a figure for Christ or of the plow for the cross
was common before Langland, as was the notion that peasant labor provided
not only material benefit for others but spiritual benefit for those who toiled.
It cannot be denied, however, that Piers ennobles the image of the actual
plowmen. Allegorical and shifting in his symbolic meaning though he may
be, Piers does incorporate the dignity of labor and its symbolic association
with religious duties and with Christ. The late Middle Ages would produce a
number of other examples of the pious plowman.
A late-fourteenth-century Welsh poem, "The Plowman," by Iolo Goch,
praises the work of this "plodder of the fields," whose labor is comparable to
King Arthur's destruction of a fortified tower. The author cites the Elucidar­
ium of Honorius Augustodunensis to the effect that those who plow are sin­
gled out for blessing by God.131
Johannes von Tepl's Der Ackermann aus Bohmen is a short prose dialogue
between Death and the author, a "plaintiff" who excoriates Death for taking
his wife.132 As with Piers Plowman, there are problems in dating this work,
the closest approximation being 1404-10. It has an extremely complicated
textual history, and its relation to the Czech Tkadlecek (in which a weaver
complains of the unfaithfulness of his beloved, Adliczka) remains unclear.
Both the Ackermann and Tkadlecek may be descended from an earlier "Ur­
Ackermann."133 The plowman is a sympathetic figure of grief and anger closer
to Everyman than an allegory of Christ.134 In fact he is only allegorically a
plowman, for his "plow" is made from a bird's feather: he is a writer, his plow
is a pen. The dialogue is a moving lament and rather bitter consolation. The
plowman as a figure has a metaphorical significance, but a rather distant one.
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 229
The plowman described in the prologue to the Canterbury Tales is more
clearly a worthy rustic whose piety exemplifies Christian rectitude: 135
With hym [i.e., the Parson] ther was a plowman, was his brother
That hadde ylad of dong ful many a fother.
A trewe swynkere and a good was he,
Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee.
God loved he best with al his hoole herte
At alle tymes, thogh him gamed or smerte,
And thanne his neighebor right as hymselve.
He wolde threshe, and therto dyke and delve,
For Christes sake, for every poure wight,
Withouten hire, if it lay in his myght.
His tithes payde he ful faire and wel,
Bothe of his propre swynk and his catel.
Chaucer's plowman is not directly credited with feeding all of society, but his
labor is beneficial to his neighbors (whom he aids for Christ's sake) and to the
Church, whose tithes he pays obediently. He is not influenced by the desire
for remuneration; thus he is immune to Langland's allegorical destroyer,
"Mede." Rustic labor is hard and even unpleasant-the association with
dung, a canonical negative topos, is the first to be mentioned, but he lives in
peace with the world. The Parson and his brother are two on the very short
list of good pilgrims, a symbolic pair representing conservative ideals of cler­
ical and peasant life.
So far we have seen three grounds for attributing to rustics a certain closeness
to God-what we may call three types of peasant virtue: first, their labor is
valuable because all of society depends on it; second, their suffering confers a
spiritual merit that will be rewarded; and third, their labor is virtuous in itself
and emblematic of divine labor and sacrifice. These are not mutually exclu­
sive, but have different implications and connections with other themes we
have followed. The first is related to the theory of the Three Orders and in
the hands of clerical writers was an aspect of hierarchy and mutuality. When
joined to the third peasant virtue, the exaltation of work, however, it could
have a sharper, antihierarchical edge. A late-medieval folksong in which a
peasant and a knight debate has the peasant point out that were it not for his
plow, the knight would not long survive. The verse explicitly denies mutuality
by mocking the knight's useless dancing and jousting ("was hilft dein stechen
und dein tanz?").136 As discussed earlier, fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-cen-
 Peasant Agenry, Peasant Humanity 230
tury peasant movements condemned idleness and praised work in religious
terms.137
The second peasant virtue ameliorates the failure of mutuality but also
extols the redeeming effects of suffering and the inversion of wealth and
poverty in the life to come. Franciscan writers in particular employed this ar­
gument to console the peasant and offer hope in return for acceptance and
obedience. Here too, however, the discourse can take a less complacent turn
in which suffering is not ennobling in God's eyes but a violation of divine law
that degrades people to the level of animals. Christ's sacrifice for fundamental
human equality could ennoble suffering in a way that led to action in the
world to combat it.
Recognition of the third ground for peasant sanctity, that peasant labor is
virtuous "in itself," is more characteristic of the late Middle Ages, with fewer
ties to earlier forms of discourse than exist for the first two peasant virtues.
Even here, however, we find a reworking of older themes, such as Jerome's
sancta rusticitas, rather than the coining of a new lexicon. The key change re­
flected in images of the third type of virtue was a move from purely symbolic
evocations of peasant life (Christ as bread or as plowman) to ascriptions of
spiritual virtue to ordinary peasants on the basis of their manner of life and
supposed piety.
W hat we are chiefly concerned to explain is the exaltation of the pious
peasant in the late Middle Ages and early Reformation. An older language
could be given not so much a completely new meaning as a more pointed
implication. It is one thing, for example, to describe the Eucharist and the
Real Presence in terms of the image of milling: the "mill of the host," figuring
Christ as spiritual sustenance ground up like wheat for our salvation, a
metaphor based on John 6:35, "I am the bread of life." Such imagery ap­
peared as early as the twelfth century.138 It may have certain implications con­
cerning rustic labor but hardly says anything directly about those who mill
real grain for everyday consumption. It is quite another thing to portray such
ordinary laborers as God's army. A Swiss pamphlet of 1521 uses the traditional
"mill of the host" imagery in a depiction of Luther and Erasmus distributing
the Bible, which is baked from the flour of a mill in which the Word is being
ground. Erasmus is the miller and Luther is the baker. The pope and his min­
ions try to oppose this action, but they are held at bay by a peasant named
Karsthans (Hans-the-Hoe), who in this instance wields another emblematic
peasant tool, a flail.139
It would be too simple, however, to oppose an earlier passive, symbolic
vocabulary of rustic virtue to a later more literal one. The themes we have
identified were in fact combined routinely. One of the most important writ-
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 231
ers on the peasantry at the end of the Middle Ages, the Carthusian Werner
Rolevinck, exemplifies this complexity. In his De regimine rusticorum, written
in 1472, Rolevinck states that God revealed the secrets of salvation to unedu­
cated rustics rather than to princes or the learned.140 The peasant is the "part­
ner [cooperator] of God, the angels, and Nature," he asserts, citing Jerome's
praise of holy rusticity to support the claim. So far, Werner is reworking old
themes, but he differs significantly from Honorius Augustodunensis, for
whom it is the labor of rustics and their negative advantages (simplicity, re­
moval from temptation) that pave the path for their entry into heaven. Here
the peasant is credited with a theological insight given directly by God.
In quite traditional fashion Rolevinck simultaneously draws back from
the implications of this formulation, requiring that peasants obey their mas­
ters (citing Romans 13=1) and resign themselves to servitude. They should ac­
cept even an unjust lord since he keeps them from opportunities to sin and
unwittingly draws them toward a heavenly crown. The peasants' suffering
and lack of freedom is not a punishment for sin but evidence of God's love.141
Also in traditional fashion, Rolevinck berates peasants for their inclination to
disobey and blames their ignorance and weak moral control for their debased
condition.142
The notion that God reveals His secrets to rustics could also have more
active consequences. This is what distinguishes the third category of peasant
virtue: peasants are divinely elected not by reason of suffering or productivity
but by reason of their innate character and way of life. This could easily mean
that rustics should preach, dispute, or in other respects forward the work of
God on earth. This is precisely what happened in the early sixteenth century
in Germany. It does not minimize the Reformation to point to the back­
ground of the image of the pious peasant that could be transformed by the
upheavals after 1517.
The peasant in the aforementioned Swiss image of the sacred mill not
only is pious but actively defends the Gospel with a symbol of his labor, one
that could be used as a weapon. Previously comical images of "typ ical" peas­
ants showed them with two-pronged hoes or with flails, thus "Karsthans" or
"Flegelhans" (Hans-the-Flail). These images were appropriated in the years
leading up to 1525, as in the Swiss pamphlet of 1521 or in Hans Kolb's undated
denunciation of clerical corruption (composed between 1520 and 1525) in
which Karsthans and Flegelhans menace priests who waste tithes and keep
concubines. Nine pamphlets denouncing the cruelty and greed of landlords,
dating to 1523-24 and written by James Locher, a former Franciscan, were ad­
dressed to "Karsthans."143 A pamphlet entitled New Karsthans, attributed to
the distinguished reformer Martin Bucer, called for an alliance between peas-
 Peasant Agency, Peasant Humanity 232

ants and lesser nobles to reform the Church. 144 Bucer presents righteous
fighters for the Gospel with the same iconographic accompaniments (rustic
tools) as those possessed by the boorish villagers of the Neidhart illustrators.
In the text of the Divine Mill pamphlet we are told that Karsthans still has
his flail but now also understands the Bible. He remains a simple man but for
that very reason stands ready to defend the Gospel should any rise against it
to restore deception.145
Those opposed to such tendencies saw disputatious or literate peasants as
an inversion of order. An illustration accompanying the prophetic text by
Joseph Gruenbeck shows a peasant officiating at the altar of an upside-down
church while outside a monk is plowing (Fig. 12).146 It is as if the nightmare
of Adalbero of Laon had come true. Illustrations to Thomas Murner's tract
On the Great Lutheran Fool ridicule the notion of the evangelical peasant. In
one picture the peasant is mounted on a snail and carries a rake, not so much
a threat as simply a representation of the peasant's lack of military skill and
equipment. Another woodcut, however, shows the peasant dressed as a mer­
cenary soldier carrying a banner labeled "Freedom." 147 That peasants should
be the equal of priests in interpreting the Bible must lead to violence and the
overturning of the social order as well, warned Catholic opponents of Luther,
and of course they were in some sense correct.148
For the early reformers, however, the peasant was credited with a degree
of ingrained skill at religious disputation, an ability to cut through the
sophistries of the learned with his simple piety. The concept of simple piety is
obviously not new, and even the idea of actually mobilizing it goes back at
least to Langland. It is put into effect rather dramatically, however, particu­
larly as a result of Luther's early teaching concerning the primacy of the Bible
and the priesthood of all believers. 149 The view that the Bible rather than a
learned theological tradition contained religious truth, together with Luther's
notion of the dignity of the common man, encouraged a more pointed ver­
sion of the traditional theme of pious simplicity, a version capable of defend­
ing faith against learned impiety. The peasant, embodying this faith, was
close to God not merely for negative reasons (lack of sophistication) but in
his everyday existence; through work rather than renunciation. Luther re­
mained firmly within the tradition that regarded rustic labor as most truly
"real" work. By deprecating ascetic practice and traditional penance, he gave
an even more positive valuation to rustic labor. In Flugschriften of the years
before the Peasants' War of 1525, work in the fields was exalted as a duty in­
cumbent on all estates, clergy and nobility included. 150 12. The world turned upside down: a peasant at the altar and a priest plowing.
Luther did not himself devote considerable attention to the peasants be­ Woodcut engraving from Joseph Gruenbeck, Spiegel der naturlichen, himelischen
fore the events of 1525, although he did make use of traditional images of la- und prophetischen sehungen (Leipzig, 1522), fol. [5r]. Reprinted by permission of the
British Library, London.
 Peasant Agenry, Peasant Humanity 234
bor, piety, sweat, and the plow.151 His influence on the cult of the pious peas­
ant was more indirect. Attacking those with claims to spiritual superiority, he
encouraged the already strong tendency to see the common man as the ex­
emplar of piety.
In the years following 1517, ending catadysmically in 1525, the "evangelical
peasant" appears as wise and as able to read and cite Scripture, dispute with
schoolmen, and see through their hypocritical rationalizations for abuse.152
Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, who was sufficiently enthusiastic about
rustics to affect peasant dress, argued in 1520 that the poor pray with more
fervor than regular clergy, that craftsmen are more knowledgeable about
Scripture than bishops, and that neither the pope nor a general council
should be ashamed to heed the words of a Christian plowman.153 The weap­
ons of the peasant were at this point thought to be words rather than flails
and pitchforks (which were more emblems or attributes). Peasants appear in
an immense number of Flugschriften, particularly in the guise of "the disputa­
tious peasant" in dialogues with opponents of reform.
The peasants depicted themselves as exemplars of piety in Dithmarschen
in 1500 and in the Bundshuh uprisings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, in which flags, for example, show peasants kneeling in prayer be­
fore a crucifix. Another flag is simply a plowshare.154 In keeping with Luther's
teaching but also in accord with traditional arguments, labor was depicted as
ennobling, as in a dialogue of 1525 in which the parasitic existence of the
clergy is contrasted to the life of Christ, who labored, and the pious toil of
the peasant: "Man was born to work as the bird to fly."155 But the peasant was
saved by his piety, his labor being its exemplification, not merely a potential
source of negative advantage. The curious case of the "Peasant of Wohrd" il­
lustrates how far the attribution of rustic inspiration had progressed. A for­
mer Benedictine monk named Diepold Peringer preached a popular sermon
(printed nine times in the period 1524-25) that attracted attention because he
was supposedly an unlettered rustic miraculously blessed by God with the
ability to preach. In this example of life imitating art, a literate cleric pre­
tended to be an ignorant peasant.156
The pious peasant was not an invention of the Reformation, although the im­
age of peasants as actively reading the Bible, disputing theological points, or
engaging in struggle to protect the reform movement were new. We have seen
that certain ideas of peasant piety grew out of the functional identification of
the peasant with work. To the extent that such work was regarded positively,
as nourishing society, the peasant was at least worthy of esteem. To the extent
Pious and Exemplary Peasants 235
that work was regarded as degrading or penitential, the peasant was credited
with a spiritual benefit in God's eyes. The particular conception that becomes
stronger in the late Middle Ages is what we have identified as the third peas­
ant virtue, the third tendency in the attribution of spiritual advantage: the
sanctification of the peasant by his pious character and by the simplicity of
his manner of life. In part this reflects a shift toward considering lay people in
general as capable of exemplifying piety, not so much by heroic sainthood as
by observation of God's law in everyday life. In surveys of the estates of soci­
ety, and in particular in discussions of their different sins, clerical writers of
the twelfth to fourteenth centuries either limited their praise of peasant labor
to its penitential quality (stemming from its difficulty and lack of fair remu­
neration) or made spiritual benefit conditional on good behavior (docility).
The growth of Bauernlob and the image of the pious plowman of the late
Middle Ages do not so much break from clerical precedent as make the attri­
bution of spiritual virtue less dependent on meekness and suffering. In Hugo
von Trimberg's convenient formulation: "He who desires wealth in heaven
should live wretchedly on earth, and not take account of his mistreatment if
he hopes to approach eternal joy." 157
Piers or the "noble peasant" of the fifteenth-century poets is ennobled by
labor and self-sacrifice but not by uncomplaining acceptance of oppression.
The conception of justice changes in relation to Christianity. Unjust suffering,
rather than indicating divine favor, comes to be regarded as irreconcilable with
the teachings of Christianity. The particular emblem of unjust oppression in­
compatible with the status of the peasant as Christian is serfdom. In one set of
teachings, servitude is to be borne because it shields weak minds from temp­
tation and promises a reversal of fortunes in the world to come. According to
another set of ideas that emphasize the peasants' status as Christians, servitude
is an intolerable contradiction of that liberty bought by Christ's blood and
promised to all the faithful. On the one hand we have the spiritual benefit of
suffering: what is spiritually ennobling are poverty and oppression. On the
other hand we have the spiritual benefit of what might be considered the nor­
mal difficulty of agricultural toil: what is spiritually ennobling is work, sim­
plicity, and simple piety. In one case servitude is merely an aspect of difficult
testing and purifying circumstances; in the other it becomes more disturbing,
a direct contradiction of humanity defined in terms of one's status as Chris­
tian. In the following chapter, we will look at the question of serfdom in con­
nection with piety, Christian teaching, and human dignity.
 Part"' 5
The Revolt Against Servitude
 Chapter' IQ
The Problem of Servitude
Arbitrary Mistreatment, Symbolic Degradation

In discussing theories of human equality and inequality we saw that the

problem for those defending the order of things was not to explain differ­
ences of birth or wealth. That some were rich and others poor was no more
bothersome to the articulate classes than it is now. What did present difficul­
ties was the failure of mutuality demonstrated by the deprivation of freedom,
the legally enforced subordination of one person to another. The shared an­
cestry of humanity and more particularly adhesion to the Christian faith
seemed to confer upon all believers, regardless of their momentary fortunes
for good or ill, an irreducible dignity that precluded domination by fellow
believers.
Slavery had been explained in several ways. The Aristotelian tradition
taught that some people were simply fit to be slaves. Roman law contrasted
the law of nature, which forbids slavery, with the law of nations, which per­
mits it. Such a distinction could fit a Christian world in which slavery was ex­
cused by reference either to an underlying equality to be realized in heaven
(St. Paul), to overall human sinfulness and weak character (Augustine, Isi­
dore), or to an original moment dividing society (Noah's curse against Ham).
It was, nevertheless, tricky to explain why Christians should be held in
subjugation by other Christians. Non-Christians presented considerably less
of a problem since their infidelity made it appropriate to subjugate them.
Only those with the most tender consciences were troubled by the enslave­
ment of aliens and infidels, terms that could be defined generously so as to
include rebels, heretics, even mere foreigners. The medieval Mediterranean
enjoyed a brisk traffic in Saracen slaves but also in Christian peoples from the
Balkans and Caucasus.
Explaining serfdom among Western European Christians was a greater
challenge because the serfs were neither heretics nor foreigners. One could the-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 240
orize that their ancestors had committed some hereditary crime (as in Catalo­
nia or Hungary), or that they were not fit for anything better (the import of
satirical literature), but it required ingenuity to represent them as sufficiently
different from the free population to justify their subjugated status. That they
were Christian made it difficult to regard them as subhuman or alien unless
they could be typified as only nominal Christians who were in fact pag�s �r
heretics. As we have found, however, the accusation that peasants were Irreli­
gious was not among the most frequent reproaches made against them. The
very qualities that ptovoked derision from a worldly point of view (poverty,
simplicity, lack of status) were at the same time spiritually beneficial.
Christianity did not confer what would now be understood as "rights."
Rather, according to at least a segment of medieval opinion, it implied a
certain minimal human dignity and, related to that, a certain minimal hu­
man freedom or immunity from arbitrary domination by others. The twelfth­
century codification of Catalan customary law governing the relations be­
tween the king and his nobles, the Usatges ofBarcelona, discusses compensa­
tion for killing rustics and others "who have no other dignity than that of
being Christians." 1 They were neither members of the aristocracy nor privi­
leged townsmen nor a special group with a defined status (such as Jews), but
at the same time they were not serfs.2 Unprivileged, they were nevertheless
free, a status manifested or proven by the minimal but significant dignity
conferred by membership in the Christian community.
Freedom was not a "natural" or inherent human condition but a privi­
lege. Freedom was understood not as a release from all bonds to others but as
immunity from the arbitrary will of another. The infringement of freedom
was not lordship as such but bad lordship; being routinely and lawfully sub­
jected to arbitrary treatment or, more pertinently, mistreatment without re­
course to a higher authority.3
To be able to exact payment or to impose punishment without answering
either to effective local resistance or to any higher jurisdiction was the essence
of lordship over the unfree or those whom one wanted to present as unfree.
In 1202 the Catalan nobility wrested from King Peter I recognition of exemp­
tion from royal intervention if they "mistreated" (maletractaverint) their rus­
tics. This right, later known as the ius maletractandi, would be among the key
indications of servile status, denoting as it did removal from the legal protec­
tions normally afforded by the public law of the principality. This was not
merely a theoretical right but one that was tested in litigation, shaped for lo­
cal customary codifications such as the fourteenth-century Customs ofthe Di­
ocese ofGirona, and brought up by lords in their negotiations with the monar­
chy during the Catalan Civil War in about 1475.4
The Problem ofServitude 241
One finds similar practices elsewhere. In the Vaud, the customary law al­
lowed a lord to chastise his serf moderately, with or without cause, although
he could not torment him.5 Beaumanoir posited the existence of such a
seigneurial right in his collection of the customary laws of Beauvaisis: "Some
serfs are so subjected to their lord that he can take all they have, when they
die or when they are still alive, and he can keep them in prison any time he
wants, rightly or wrongly, for he is answerable for them only to God."6 Here
the right affects only the lowest category of serfs, although they are not other­
wise very clearly defined. As in Catalonia, here the particular mistreatment
envisaged is imprisonment and seizure of goods, and it is not merely a right
of judgment or jurisdiction but a prerogative to be exercised irrespective of
any justification. The canons of Notre Dame in Paris claimed the right to im­
prison or even kill their serfs during a quarrel with their tenants at Orly. The
serfs had appealed to the queen (who was acting as regent for the absent
Louis IX), whereupon they were cast into the chapter's prison. They were ex­
ercising a putative right of jurisdiction, but one that had an arbitrary charac­
ter similar to that in the examples previously mentioned. According to the
Grandes chroniques, the canons asserted their right to distrain and imprison
their serfs "as they wished." 7
In some customary law traditions, manifestly unjust conduct was not ex­
pressly permitted, but lords could mete out punishment that approached an
essentially arbitrary control over life and death. The symbolic importance
of shedding blood or of execution might be reserved to the prince, but this
did not prevent extreme treatment. In Aragon, according to the thirteenth­
century jurist and bishop Vidal de Canellas, a lord could kill a man who mur­
dered another of his dependents, but only by such means as avoided the shed­
ding of blood (death in prison from starvation, thirst, or cold was suggested).8
According to Exodus 21:20-21, a master who killed his slave was to be
punished unless the slave lingered a day or two before dying. This inspired a
number of law codes such as that of King Alfred in 892-93 and Ruprecht von
Freising's Preisinger Rechtsbuch (compiled in 1328). According to the latter, a
man who killed his serf by flogging was guilty of a crime unless the serf lived
for more than a day after the punishment. In that case, the master was con­
sidered not to have deliberately killed him and so was guiltless.9 In these in­
stances the lords were presumed to be acting for some reason, not out of cruel
caprice, but obviously they could exert a nearly uncontrolled level of coercion.
Pierre Bonnassie has reminded us of the importance of the symbolism of
violence that demonstrated with graphic and exemplary clarity the degree to
which lords held their unfree subordinates in thrall. Marc Bloch has written
of the "essence profonde" of servitude, a condition broader than the specific
 The Revolt Against Servitude 242
economic obligations of bondage to a lord.10 Bloch cites examples of mutila­
tion, torture, and burning.11 Lords who wanted to punish in a fashion that
would cow others tempted to poach or otherwise violate his monopolies
might inflict cruel reminders of their power. Ordericus Vitalis recounts that
Count Galceran of Meulan in n24 cut the feet off of peasants who illegally
cut wood.12 Lords who wanted to undermine what had previously been free
communities would resort to beatings, threats of mutilation, and holding
peasants for ransom, as, for example, in twelfth-century Catalonia in the
decades before the right of seigneurial mistreatment was finally officially
recognized.13
Lords could not, of course, consistently act in this fashion toward their
tenants without finding their wealth threatened by demoralization and deser­
tion-the "Giles de Rais model" of pathologically wicked lordship was not
viable economically. And in fact the serfs led their lives largely outside of the
shadow of immediate seigneurial supervision, a circumstance that differenti­
ated them from slaves. "Seigneurial piracy" (the expression is Bonnassie's) had
to be engaged in judiciously, to encourage obedience.14 I have mentioned Fe­
lix Hemmerli's recommendation that peasant farms be burned every 50 years
to teach respect. Arson was also envisaged as an official measure of coercion
further east, in Carinthia. According to Johann von Viktring, writing in 1336,
the Carinthian dukes appointed a Landesbrandschatzamt ("territorial incendi­
ary') to set fires in order to create and maintain fear of the ruler. This official
is attested in documents from 1302 until the seventeenth century, but his du­
ties were probably to regulate and suppress feuds (which often involved the
punitive or threatened burning of houses and farms) rather than to terrorize
the rural populace.15
It remains difficult to determine to what degree peasants lived in vivid
fear of their lords, but it is unlikely that they were completely cowed, given
their control of the immediate circumstances of cultivation.16 There is no
doubt, however, that the selective demonstration of savagery was useful if not
vital to the maintenance of lordship. Extrajudicial violence was not so much
an everyday form of control as a symbolic statement of arbitrary power, and
consequently of subjugation to that power.
It is important to underscore the significance of symbolic acts of oppres­
sion and violence that marked the borders between freedom and servitude.
Servile status did not inevitably mean economic or even social degradation.
In England, for example, extensive holdings of land and substantial local sta­
tus might coexist with villeinage.17 Nevertheless, servile status was felt to be
onerous, unjust, and worth sacrifice to cast off or resist even in places where
there was little if any short-term gain in moving out of villeinage. The litiga-
The Problem ofServitude 243
tion or payments to induce lords to accept an improvement in their tenants'
condition were expenses borne by villeins in many parts of thirteenth- and
early-fourteenth-century England.18 Studies of servitude in Catalonia, south­
eastern Germany, and the region around Sens similarly demonstrate that
servile status was perceived as an extra-economic indignity that peasants at­
tempted to evade, buy out, or resist.19
The next chapter, which deals with the peasant wars of the late Middle
Ages, will examine more closely how important questions of freedom and le­
gal status actually were to peasant rebels. Here I am concerned to show the
symbolic representation of servitude, which centered on capricious domina­
tion. Even if in the everyday economic sense the servile regime was a carefully
administered structure of obligation, it depended on certain dramatic images
and proofs of subordination for its effectiveness.
Acts of seigneurial domination were not necessarily as violent as the afore­
mentioned burning, maiming, and killing. The lowliness of the peasant was
portrayed by a comical helplessness that symbolically reinforced his inferior­
ity. In a judicial proceeding over proof of unfree status in 1387, a witness re­
called the harsh treatment meted out by the lords of Rocourt (in the bish­
opric of Basel, now the canton of Jura). Ferry de Rocourt on one occasion
had answered complaints of the village mayor by observing that the mayor
knew very well he was a serf (homme de morte main) and that if Ferry wished,
"he could take him by the foot and sell him in the market." 20 It was imagined
that in earlier times, lords had exercised tyrannical rights over their rustic de­
pendents, compared to which mere taxation (by way of commutation of
these rights) was an amelioration. There was a mythical periodization of un­
freedom, an invented tradition memorializing a primitive but still influential
servitude. In mid-thirteenth-century Liege it was claimed that the saintly
bishop Adalbero had, over a century earlier, abolished the practice of rou­
tinely cutting off one of the hands of a peasant, a brutal token of controlling
his inheritance, in favor of the relatively mild mainmorte (literally, "dead
hand").21
The phantom "droit de seigneur" or "droit de cuissage"-the supposed
right of a lord to deflower peasant brides-is a curious example of arbitrari­
ness and its supposed commutation. In the eighteenth century it served as an
the emblem of aristocratic caprice and corruption, made famous especially by
Beaumarchais's Marriage ofFigaro. This "custom" was in fact almost exclu­
sively mythical. Over a century ago, Karl Schmidt laboriously and conclu­
sively demonstrated that the historical basis for this right was either com­
pletely fabricated or resulted from a confusion of seigneurial control over
marriage off the estate (the right known in France as formariage).22 Such con-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 244
fusion is to some degree understandable in that lords could enforce marriage
exactions in peculiar ways. Ferry de Rocourt claimed the right to decide
where a newly married couple should spend the first night after their wed­
ding. The brides were not originally from his jurisdiction, so the ceremony
was designed to show that the new couple belonged to the lord of Rocourt. A
similar right is found in the fourteenth-century Coutumier bourgign,on. 23
Recently Alain Boureau, in a masterful treatment already cited in a num­
ber of contexts, showed how the mythical droit de cuissage made its varied ap­
pearances, from its use by lords eager to inflate the estimated value of their
fiefs in sixteenth-century Beam to the rhetoric of liberal and anticlerical op­
position in the era of Napoleon III. Boureau agrees with Schmidt that there
never was a legal claim to exact this "right," but the legend does have a me­
dieval context, thus it amounts to more than an antifeudal invention of the
Enlightenment. The earliest instance in Boureau's dossier is the cullage men­
tioned in a peculiar poem of 1247 concerning the vilains of Verson in Nor­
mandy.24 Boureau also describes a small number of "troubling [i.e., perhaps
valid] cases" that, although forming an infinitesimal proportion of the sei­
gneurial records of the period, suggest the geographical and chronological
range of this myth.
Much of its imaginative power came from the graphic demonstration of
lordship and the symbolic sexual humiliation of dependents. The supposed
droit de cuissage is thus a version of the same image of sexual helplessness seen
in the fobliaux (peasant males as easily cuckolded) or the pastourelles (chivalric
predation directed against peasant girls).25
The droit de seign,eur was, among other things, an extralegal "proof " of
servitude, a more vivid demonstration of control than such indices as majn­
morte (death duties), taille (a head tax or taxation at will), or formariage' (a
fine for marriage off the estate). In Catalonia, where the equivalent of for­
mariage was simply integrated into the system of manumission payments for
servile tenants, a peculiar indication of servile status was cugucia, a fine paid
by a servile husband if his wife was adulterous. This was one among a group
of so-called "bad customs" (mals usos) that coalesced by the late twelfth or
early thirteenth centuries into the legal and symbolic characteristics of servi­
tude.26 Late fifteenth-century Catalonia also furnishes the most striking ex­
ample of the droit de seign,eur, not quite as a genuine right but as a symbol
and perhaps reality of seigneurial mistreatment that figures in the complaints
of the peasants themselves. In 1462, on the eve of the rebellion that would
eventually result in the abolition of serfdom in Catalonia, negotiators for
both sides met at Vic to discuss the grievances of the remences (as Catalan
serfs were called). The peasants demanded an end to the practice of lords
The Problem ofServitude 245
spending the night with peasant brides or, as a symbol of lordship, claiming a
right to "pass over" the newly married woman while she lay in bed. This was
regarded by the peasants not only as evil but as a degrading symbol of unjust
subjugation. At Vic the lords responded that they never heard of such a right
and renounced it willingly if it existed.27 That lords did, in fact, occasionally
demand such privileges receives support from an account by the Silesian trav­
eler Nicholas von Popplau, who described its exercise in 1486, on the eve of
its abolition.28
The issue would be raised upon the conclusion of the civil war and peas­
ant rebellion. The document that officially ended serfdom in 1486, the royal
Sentence of Guadalupe, referred to this abusive custom, which it abolished.29
The Catalan peasants also complained of other degrading obligations,
such as the lords' practice of requisitioning wet nurses for their infants from
among their tenants, or the ius maletractandi itself.30 The Catalan example
shows a spectrum of signs of harsh lordship: the economically important "bad
customs" (whose acknowledged "badness" and degrading overtones shade
into such demeaning obligations as wet-nurse service), arbitrary levies, a right
of mistreatment, and at least the echo of the droit de seign,eur. In Galicia,
where an antiseigneurial rebellion erupted in 1467, complaints of arbitrary
treatment included references to various forms of real and symbolic sexual ex­
ploitation.31 At Fuenteovejuna in 1476, the murdered commander of the Or­
der of Calatrava was accused of having robbed and violated female villagers,
but the causes of the rebellion ( jurisdictional and fiscal) appear to have been
more prosaic.32
Arbitrary lordship symbolized and proved servile status in such realms as
Catalonia, where serfdom was a legally recognized and economically impor­
tant form of land tenure. In other regions, where servitude was either waning
or unknown, or where lords attempted to revive it, arbitrary lordship was in­
terpreted by peasants themselves as the key to a degradation of their condition.
In Upper Swabia the abbey of Kempten was master of an extensive prin­
cipality of its own that included serfs (Leibeigenen or Eigenleute), but also
nonservile tenants who paid a census or head tax in acknowledgment of lord­
ship (Freizinser), and tenants completely free of seigneurial incidents other
than rent (Muntleute). During the fifteenth century, the prince-abbots of
Kempten tried to degrade free tenants to the level of Freizinser and the latter
to the level of servitude. In 1423 the peasants managed to take their case to
the imperial court at Ulm, where the abbot produced a forged charter of
Charlemagne that gave the same rights over Freizinser as those held over serfs.
The Freizinser of the town of Kempten itself were able to appeal to Pope Mar­
tin V, who upheld their argument. Another struggle took place in 1460, when
 The Revolt Against Servitude 246
the abbot required death taxes, labor services, and other servile obligations
from Freizinser. He also implemented marriage regulations that had the effect
of degrading men who married below them. Beginning in 1481, the mon­
astery began confiscating one half of a peasant's estate upon his death, requir­
ing in addition the payment of death duties from the remaining hal£ A re­
bellion in 1491 (when taxes were raised during a famine) resulted in the de­
feat of the peasants by the Swabian League and the degradation of 1,200
Freizinser to servitude.33
Shortly before the outbreak of the German Peasants' War, in January 1525,
the Kempten peasants renewed their complaints. The response of the abbot
was that he had indeed made serfs out of Freizinser who married serfs, but
that in no case had he acted differently from what was customary among
neighboring lords.34 On this occasion, a register of 335 complaints (represent­
ing 1,220 individuals) was drawn up by members of each category of tenants,
the so-called Kemptener Leibeigenschaftsrodel The complaints centered around
degradation by reason of marriage, the prohibitions on leaving the abbeys ju­
risdiction, and arbitrary fines and imprisonment.35 In September 1525, during
the general rebellion of the south German peasants, the Kempten tenants
summarized their grievances by stating that their forefathers had been free, in
possession of "Libertet und Freiheit," but that they had been forced to relin­
quish this liberty and to submit to oppressive obligations and arbitrary pun­
ishment at the hands of the abbots.36
Similar pressures on free and semifree peasants were exerted by the mon­
astery of Saint Gall during the fifteenth century. The monastery attempted to
level its tenants (Gotteshausleute) to a single level, that of serfs ( leibeigene
Gotteshausleute). 37 In south Germany, as in England, Catalonia, and else­
where, serfdom and complaints about servitude were not simply masks for
economic or communal issues. Personal unfreedom had a substantial effect
and was deeply resented. In addition to the examples of Kempten and Saint
Gall, there were localized revolts over servitude against a number of German
secular and clerical lords.38 I have tried to argue similarly that the Catalan
peasant revolt of 1462-86 was essentially about serfdom.39 In general, as Yves­
Marie Berce has observed for early modern France, the instigation to revolt
resulted from a sense of injustice, along with a certain calculation of opportu­
nity, rather than an absolute level of economic misery.40
Servitude represented the most telling encapsulation of injustice, not nec­
essarily or exclusively because of its economic impact but because the serf was
rendered subhuman. Ill treatment, or the idea that coercion is justified and
necessary to compel work, placed the serf in a conceptual setting resembling
that of a domestic animal. We have seen a tendency to speak of peasants as if
The Problem ofServitude 247
they were either a subordinate form of humanity or at least partially bestial.
While such depiction was often comical ("the peasant resembles an ox except
that he lacks horns''), the reiteration of the peasants' essentially nonhuman na­
ture excused inhuman treatment, although peculiar distinctions might be
made among degrees of degradation. Judges on the London eyre of 1244 stated
that servile tenants might be put in stocks but not in irons. Their owners
might sell such serfs "like oxen and cows" but were not to kill or maim them
since their bodies belonged to the king.41 Serfs could thus be likened to do­
mesticated animals and subjected to arbitrary but not unlimited mistreatment.
In peasant remonstrances, especially those written during the German
Peasants' War of 1525 (these, of course, have been much better preserved than
remonstrances from any other revolt), unjust subjugation was described with
the same animal metaphors, but now in order to emphasize a gross injustice,
not to characterize peasant nature. Tenants of the abbey of Ochsenhausen in
Upper Swabia stated in a manifesto that they should not be "sold like cattle
and sheds, for we all have one lord, that is God in heaven." 42 In 1525, serfs of
the prince-archbishop of Salzburg complained that servitude violated the
Gospels, amounting to a right to compel men to submit to seigneurial greed
and brutality, to be led around by the nose. They were treated like cattle,
"only even more tyrannically."43 At Kempten in 1525, after listing the oppres­
sive practices of the abbey, the protesting peasants complained that they were
treated more harshly than serfs and dogs.44 Inhumane treatment violated not
so much an abstract notion of human rights but a particular dispensation ac­
corded by Christ's sacrifice to those who believed in Him. To be Christian, in
this sense, was to be fully human, or at least possessed of a basic humanity
that was violated by servitude.
I will examine the issue of servitude in the great peasant revolts up to 1525
in the next chapter and try to see what connections there might have been
between how peasants framed their demands and earlier ideas of equality,
Christianity and natural law. Here I want to delineate what those ideas were
(an effort to some extent anticipated in Chapter 6), paying particular atten­
tion to serfdom, which seemed not only to symbolize the violation of human
dignity by arbitrary treatment but to go against the Christian idea of an ulti­
mate shared human nature.
Servitude, Force, and Christ's Sacrifice
In discussing medieval ideas of equality, I argued that the crux was not a lev­
eling of social condition but a recognition of a basic status shared by all hu­
manity. God's creation of Adam and Eve and descent from a common ances-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 248
tor conferred an ultimate likeness. Various arguments could be put forward
to explain why this original equality no longer held, and why some people
were justly or at least appropriately subordinated.
Another strategy was to deny that servitude, the most obvious violation
of minimal equality, affected anything more than the material body, the life
in the temporal world. St. Paul instructed servants (servi in the Vulgate) to
obey and honor their masters (Ephesians 6:5; 1 Timothy 6:1; Colossians 4:1),
and his counsel that God does not distinguish between free and unfree
(1 Corinthians 7:21-23) was followed by Church fathers such as Ambrosiaster
and Lactantius, who stated that God did not recognize slavery. Precisely be­
cause of this, there was no reason to overthrow the secular practices that de­
prived certain individuals of freedom. The same argument would appear
again in Luther's The Freedom ofa Christian and his later refutation of peas­
ant claims to a literal, worldly liberty as a carnal understanding of spiritual
freedom.45 Luther's doctrine of acceptance of the social order actually con­
tains two arguments: the contention that Christians are not harmed in the
sight of God by servile condition (a view unexceptionable and fully supported
by the New Testament), and the more tendentious position that the Bible ac­
tually sanctions servitude, so that rebellion against it is therefore seditious and
heretical. 46
In order to deny that servitude among Christians was licit, two assertions
were necessary: first, that there was no basis for a differentiated penalty for
general human sinfulness that imposed servitude on some but not on others,
and second, that servitude violated not only original equality but a continu­
ing intention of God to uphold it. That sin entered the world through Adam
did not necessarily excuse subordination. The result of sin might be that the
powerful illegitimately dominated the weak, not that the weak were appro­
priately restrained by force.
Augustine had treated servitude as a consequence of sin but distinguished
between adverse circumstance and human iniquity as its direct cause.47 Later
authors who condemned slavery and serfdom made use of this distinction, ar­
guing that subordination proceeded not as a natural result of the fallen con­
dition of man, nor as part of a hidden divine purpose, but from specific
wicked intent and action. The contrast in approaches to servitude was some­
times subtle. Smaragdus, Agobard of Lyons, Jonas of Orleans, and Atto of
Vercelli, for example, all asserted the ultimate equality of humanity.48 Agob­
ard and Jonas followed Gregory the Great, distinguishing original equality,
whereby all were created in His image, from a just if mysterious divine decree
by which some were, at least externally, subordinated into servitude. Smarag­
dus, however, attributed domination to wicked acts, not to nature; Atto
The Problem ofServitude 249
stated that servitude came not from the natural order of things but from in­
iquity, not from Ham but from human injustice.49 Iniquity here was not in
keeping with God's purpose but purely human.
Naturally, such attitudes by no means dominated within the medieval
Church, which continued to regard servitude as not only licit but praisewor­
thy in many instances. The monastery of Marmoutier kept records of its ser­
vile dependents and the acts, dramatically represented, by which they placed
themselves in pious subjection to the monastery as serfs.50 Andrew ofFleury's
contribution to the Miracles ofSaint Benedict includes the story of Stabilis, a
serf who escaped and prospered in Burgundy. Brought finally to justice by the
monks, Stabilis attempted to prove his free status, but a coin in his sleeve
(symbolic of his servile head tax) grew suddenly and miraculously weighty
and immense as he appeared before a tribunal. He was forced to acknowledge
his servitude toFleury.51
Nevertheless, a number of voices both clerical and nonclerical questioned
the assumptions by which serfdom was presented as natural and routine. De­
liberate injustice, rather than circumstance against a background of universal
sinfulness, would be emphasized in one of the best-known medieval denun­
ciations of servitude, Eike von Repgow's Sachsenspiegel a vernacular law code
composed between 1221 and 1224. This passage was cited above in connection
with the denial that Noah's curse could be used to justify serfdom. Eike ends
his refutation of biblical justifications by stating that servitude comes from
coercion unjustly imposed by men, not from any kind of divine purpose or
dispensation. Servitude is an evil custom imposed by power, which now seeks
acceptance as if it were law. 52 The same formulation appears in the south­
German legal collection the Schwabenspiegel and it would figure in other
German law books of the later Middle Ages.53
That servitude violated natural law was, of course, an idea as old as the
Greek philosophers and the Roman lawyers. Christian theologians such as
Augustine, Agobard, and Aquinas could countenance modification to natural
law because of sin and the need to restrain the wicked in a radically imper­
fect world. This relative natural law was opposed by Eike von Repgow but
also by John Ball, the author of the Reformatio Sigismundi, and a number of
peasant spokesmen in 1525. They insisted, in effect, on an absolute natural
law that could not licitly be modified or set aside.54 It is here that we arrive at
the second argument identified above: that God's original creation of human­
ity in His image and with a fundamental equality of condition was still valid.
The Fall had not so debased humanity that servitude became either licit or
necessary. The Incarnation broke the bonds of servitude that had placed man
in the devil's power.
 The Revolt Against Servitude 250
Concretely, it was argued that Christ's sacrifice had freed humanity from
bondage to sin, rendering servitude thereafter a violation of Christian liberty.
Slavery (and later serfdom) were imposed by human wickedness-by
force-not by a hidden dispensation of God to a fallen humanity. The falli­
bility of human intentions and institutions did not excuse the imposition of a
servitude that violated a still-valid divine and natural law.
By nature we are all equal, Gregory the Great argued. Borrowing from
Augustine, he contrasted God's command to Noah and his offspring to in­
crease and multiply and to subdue the denizens of the earth with human
domination of other humans. Man was commanded to inspire fear in ani­
mals, not in other men.55 Gregory acknowledged that some should rule and
others be ruled, and that equality was not, under the circumstances, possi­
ble.56 Nevertheless, the contrast between domination over animals and dom­
ination over humans would continue to be a fundamental way of both at­
tacking and justifying the oppression and particularly the servitude of rustics.
On the one hand, Alcuin, Jonas of Orleans, Hrabanus Maurus, Rather of
Verona, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Stephen Langton condemned the
oppression of men by their fellows because God had given man dominion
only over animals. Similar reasoning appears in the grievances of south-Ger­
man peasants.57 Gregory's contrast between divinely ordained domination
over animals and illicit control over humans figured in the sermons of the
head of the Hungarian Franciscans, Oswald of Lasko. Denouncing lords who
impose servitude and oppression on their servile tenants, Oswald, writing at
the end of the fifteenth century, invoked Gregory as well as our common ori­
gin in Adam.58 On the other hand, apologists for seigneurial mistreatment re­
garded peasants as animals and thus as meriting subhuman conditions. Peas­
ant advocates of course condemned their treatment as animals in violation of
their created nature. In both instances an unstable border between human
and nonhuman was evoked by serfdom.
Arguments over servitude were not generally framed in terms of abstract
human right, at least not before the controversies of the sixteenth century
over the enslavement of the inhabitants of the New World. What held more
rhetorical and moral sway was the image of Christ as the breaker of human
bondage to Satan and to sin.59 Christ's sacrifice could be interpreted as con­
ferring a presumption of liberty on His people, a more than merely internal
spiritual liberty, implying that servitude of Christians not otherwise con­
quered or legitimately held captive violated divine law.
In a passage that would be frequently cited in later centuries, Gregory the
Great, upon freeing two dependents of the Church of Syracuse, described the
effect of Christ's assuming human flesh as the restoration of our earlier lib-
The Problem ofServitude 251
erty and release from the chain of servitude.60 For Gregory, it was a good deed
to free slaves, men born by nature free but subjugated by the law of nations.
On the other hand, this was hardly a call to abolition. Gregory's manumis­
sion appears in Gratian's Decretum in connection with the freeing of Church
dependents notwithstanding the prohibition against alienation of ecclesiasti­
cal property.61 A twelfth-century manumission from Chartres refers to the ex­
ample of Christ, the liberator of humanity.62
Christ's sacrifice was extended beyond the narrow question of emancipat­
ing dependents to the upholding of a doctrine of essential equality and dig­
nity. It conferred a similitude on all humanity, or at least on all Christians. In
denouncing the Forest Laws of Henry II, Adam of Eynsham joins together
the two themes we have been tracing: the distinction between the treatment
of animals and the treatment of humans, and the equality of humanity in
Christ's sacrifice. The punitive laws against hunting in the forest meant a re­
versal of divine order-animals were protected while human beings, benefi­
ciaries of Christ's sacrifice, were destroyed or mutilated: "In revenge for irra­
tional wild animals, which ought by natural law to be available to all in com­
mon, he had either punished by death or cruelly mutilated in their limbs
human beings, who employ reason, were saved by the same blood of Christ
and share the same nature in equality."63
The Sachsenspiegel also reflects the influence of the passage from Gregory,
beginning the discussion of servitude with the statement: "God formed all
human beings after His image and suffered agony for all. The poor are in His
keeping as much as are the rich."64 In the Schwabenspiegel the wording is
changed slightly to emphasize the salvation brought by Christ, while human
equality is less explicitly emphasized: "God has created man after Himself, for
which men should honor Him. He has also saved mankind from hell with
His suffering."65 It is probably through the influence of the German law
books that the sacrifice of Christ was placed in a number of later texts in op­
position to servitude and servile incidents. In a denunciation of seigneurial
exactions (especially inheritance taxes), the archbishop of Prague, Johann von
Jenstejn (Jenzenstein) wrote in the late fourteenth century that Christian
princes must fulfill their duties toward the populace whom Christ's blood re­
deemed. The archbishop considered the practice of confiscating peasant hold­
ings in the event of death without children as no better than a "pagan cus­
tom."66 Princes and priests must use their power in accord with Christ's
teachings of peace and liberty, and the death duties are in this sense a defi­
ance of natural and divine law, neither of which can be derogated.67 Here, as
in the Sachsenspiegel Christ's sufferings and the unalterable nature of natural
law are marshaled against servitude. More radical Bohemian observers also in-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 252
voked Christ's sacrifice against servitude. The Hussite Peter Chelcicky re­
jected the Three Orders model on the grounds that nobles' privileges were
based on illegitimate violence, not on function or divine ordinance. Servitude
was sinful, for had not Christ redeemed all with His blood, rendering traffic
in human beings immoral?68
Better known is the Reformatio Sigismundi, in which a Turk argues before
the emperor's court in Basel that Christians violate their own doctrine in the
treatment of serfs. Acknowledging the power of what the Bible and the
Church teach, the Turk contrasts the liberation of Christians for eternal life
purchased with Christ's sacrifice with the actual fact that Christians are held
by their fellows in bondage.69
At the end of the fifteenth century, Alexander Seitz of Wilrttemberg
stated that God had created us all as nobles and that Christ had paid the
same price for all. 70 Here the idea of equality is joined to that of freedom, but
it is an equality of dignity that is the product not so much of natural law as of
Christian dispensation. Similarly, Erasmus argued in the Institutio principis
christiani that human beings had been created free, a condition violated by
servitude. Christ had freed all from servitude. How shameful, therefore, that
servitude should be imposed on those whom Christ, by His blood, had made
free. This would be translated into German and, along with the law books,
exert a significant influence on the framing of peasant demands in 1525.71
Equality and liberty in Christ's blood would be marshaled by the Ger­
man peasant movements in 1525. The Twelve Articles ofthe Peasants ofSwabia,
the most widely disseminated peasant manifesto of that fateful year, argued
for the end of serfdom on the basis of Christ's blood, which was shed for all,
"the shepherd just as the highest, no one excepted."72 The peasants denied
that they wanted freedom at the expense of authority, so that neither an ab­
solute freedom nor an absolute equality was demanded, but rather an irre­
ducible likeness and liberty in Christ as promised by Scripture. Article 3 con­
cludes: "We have no doubt that as true and genuine Christians, you will
gladly release us from serfdom, or else show us from the Gospel that we are
serfs.''
Peter Bierbrauer and Walter Muller have shown the connections between
peasant demands in 1525 and the Sachsenspiegel and Schwabenspiegel (the latter
being the more influential lawbook in south Germany, where the rebellion
was centered). Specifically, assertions that servitude contradicts the Bible, that
Christ saved all with His suffering, and that servitude is therefore a violation
of Christian liberty are all found in grievances and demands o� peasants in
1525 from communities such as Memmingen, Salzburg, Apfingen, Bitsch, and
Hanau as well as in the Twelve Articles. 73
The Problem ofServitude 253
In one case, the idea of Christ's sacrifice and human freedom was joined
to the myths of heroic freedom examined in Chapter 9. The late-fifteenth­
century laws of Schwyz claimed that the Swiss came originally from Sweden
and that upon settling the new land they agreed to recognize no earthly lord
other than Christ Jesus, whose suffering, blood, and death had saved them.74
Outside of German-speaking lands, away from the influence of the Sach­
senspiegel, however, one finds a more extended joining of liberty, historical
manipulation, and Christ's sacrifice. In Catalonia, where servitude would
eventually be abolished after a long civil war in 1486, an earlier attempt by
peasants to buy out seigneurial rights failed but not without producing local
syndicates organized both to agitate for the end of serfdom and to raise
money to achieve it. The formation of these local groups is recorded in a doc­
ument, preserved in the municipal archive of Girona, whose prologue at­
tempted to justify the ending of a long-standing custom.75 The prologue be­
gins with the words of Gregory's letter to the bishop of Syracuse and then at­
tempts to prove by a historical argument that the Catalan peasants were
unjustly held in unchristian servitude. Answering the legend of the cowardly
peasants (i.e., that Charlemagne had punished with perpetual servitude those
who failed to aid his liberating armies), the prologue claims that the inhabi­
tants of Catalonia at the time the Christian armies arrived were in fact Mus­
lims ("pagans"). Harsh treatment was meted out to them not to punish any
betrayal of their faith as Christians but to encourage them to become Chris­
tians. Servitude could not be considered compatible with Christian liberty. As
an inducement to convert, the Christian conquerers promised that those who
became Christians would be freed of the "bad customs" and servile status that
properly should affect only infidels. Conversion had not led to liberty, how­
ever. Christians were kept in servitude, even after the entire population had
converted, in violation of divine and natural law. When Christ took on hu­
man flesh, His passion broke the bonds of servitude and (again evoking Gre­
gory) restored to us our pristine liberty. Thus this document combines sev­
eral themes: Christ's sacrifice and human liberty, a refutation of a historical
explanation for servitude applied to a particular nation, and denial that servi­
tude is an inevitable and licit consequence of sublapsarian conditions.
The prologue to the document describing the formation of the Catalan
syndicates should probably not be taken as an example of the peasants' voice
in quite the same manner as the German Flugschriften published 75 years
later. The document was written in Latin, and moreover, although tracing the
peasants' ancestry to Saracens rather than timid Christians was an ingenious
answer to seigneurial justifications for serfdom, it is unlikely that the peasants
themselves would have accepted the idea of Muslim ancestry with much en-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 254
thusiasm.We are concerned, however, to show not so much the specific pro­
ducers and consumers of the image of Christ's sacrifice and human equality as
its range.
Thus even earlier than the assembly of the peasants, the illicit nature of
servitude was raised within the circle of the royal court. Maria de Luna,
queen of Aragon-Catalonia at the opening of the fifteenth century, attempted
to have serfdom (which affected only certain parts of Catalonia) abolished on
Church lands by appealing to her kinsman, Pope Benedict XIII, the pope of
the Avignonese party, who would ultimately be supported solely by the King­
dom of Aragon.Among her arguments was the example of Christ (ad exem­
plum Crucifixi), who had liberated us from servitude and whom the pope
should follow in releasing the servile population from bondage.76 This fol­
lowed unsuccessful attempts by King Joan I, first in 1388 and again shortly
before his death in 1395, to procure the abolition of the "bad customs" affect­
ing the Catalan serfs.77 On the first occasion, King Joan also asked for evi­
dence to be produced from the royal archives confirming his understanding
that "the time of servitude ...according to the chronicles has already
passed." 78 The king seems to be referring to a version of the legend that at­
tributed serfdom to the curse of Charlemagne, whose validity he does not
deny but which he believed was a punishment with a limited term (500
years?).Maria, daughter-in-law of King Joan I by her marriage to his son
King Martin I, argued from a less historical point of view. Describing the
"bad customs" and the ius maletractandi with adjectives such as "depraved
and detestable," "pestiferous and reprobate/ Maria asserted that they violate
divine and natural law. Maria detailed the specific exactions and arbitrary
power of the lords that placed the wretched remences in a worse and more vile
status than that afflicting any other people in the world oppressed by the yoke
of servitude.Such a "singular, detestable, and execrable monstrosity" stained
the honor and reputation of Catalonia as well as contravening natural justice
and human liberty given by God at the beginning of time.
The pope, besieged in Avignon (from which he would escape in March
of 1403), in need of friends as one presumes he was, nevertheless declined to
give in on this (or for that matter any other) issue, despite the queen's re­
peated entreaties and various arguments and inducements.79 Throughout the
fifteenth century, despite various turns of policy and opportunism, the court
of the kings of Aragon (and certain jurists) could at least imagine and portray
servitude as unjust.On several occasions the king agreed to accept peasant
demands to compel a buyout of seigneurial claims, but reneged.An explana­
tion for the peculiar success of the peasants in Catalonia at obtaining the abo­
lition of serfdom must incorporate the willingness of powerful elements of
The Problem ofServitude 255
society to accept the justice of peasant claims, to acknowledge that they mer­
ited a degree of liberty consequent on a certain basic human equality.80
I stated above that in order for servitude to be effectively denounced, the
claim that it was a natural consequence of human sinfulness had to be re­
futed.One strategy was to show that there was no basis for servitude to affect
only part of society.This is the purport of the Sachsenspiegel and the prologue
to the assembly of Catalan peasants in 1448-49, both of which take issue with
attempts to justify such partial servitude by reference to Noah's curse and the
historical myth of the cowardly peasants.But other arguments justifying serf­
dom or relegating it to minor importance tended to posit a universal human
sinfulness that led to the subordination of some people for reasons uncon­
nected to a specific transgression.This is the position taken by Ambrosiaster,
Augustine, Isidore, and Agobard: sin had introduced what Gregory the Great
referred to as "diversity'' into the world, by which some dominated over oth­
ers, either because they had a superior character (Isidore) or because they had
a hidden dispensation from God (Gregory).
To refute this idea required asserting that the Fall had not obscured the
original equality of Creation, nor had it diminished the force of natural or di­
vine law. Christ's sacrifice had restored original liberty so that all who em­
braced His teachings (Christians) should be free.That they were not was the
result of specific unjust coercion, not of a general sublapsarian order; a wicked
usurpation, not a circumstantial adaptation.The key step was to argue that
this freedom could not be merely otherworldly or exist only in the eyes of
God as Paul had said; 81 it had to be realized in this world.
Human law had to coincide with divine law.This form of what Gerald
Strauss has called "legal primitivism" characterized much of the thought of
the early Reformation and clearly stands behind the peasants' assertion of
Godly Law on the occasion of the Bundshuh uprisings and the great war of
1525.82 This law of the Gospels could not be modified by positive law or by
arguments of circumstance or custom. As Peter Bierbrauer has observed,
some of the late-medieval thinkers dissented from the scholastic and canonis­
tic consensus that posited a relative natural law permitting modification of
the dictates of Christianity because of sin.To this the Sachsenspiege4 Wyclif,
the Taborites, and peasant leaders from 1381 to 1525 opposed an unmodified,
absolute Godly law that serfdom violated.83 Custom and positive law con­
trary to divine and natural law could not be allowed to persist, according to
this view, which had many less radical adherents.The Schwabenspiegel first ar­
gued that lords who did not protect their dependents did not merit obedi-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 256
ence, then repeated the Sachsenspiegel's formulation that servitude comes not
from law but from force dressed up as law. Such force, however long its his­
tory and however deep its acceptance as custom, remains contradictory to
God's law, hence invalid.84
The ability of positive law to impose practices contrary to divine law was
also disputed, as in a commentary on Catalan parliamentary legislation
drawn up in 1438 by Tomas Mieres. Arguing against the ius maletractandi,
Mieres stated that even though it had been enacted by the king and parlia­
ment, it could not invalidate divine law. 85
We should hardly imagine peasants rallying to a cry of "down with mod­
ified natural law." More vividly, they formulated their demands in terms of a
divine ordinance of equality through Christ, one that could not be abrogated
by custom, historical explanations, Old Testament reasons, or positive law.
The image of the peasant as naturally meant for servile work, or as cursed
by circumstance, or as forming a lower, semibestial level of humanity justi­
fied servitude. Against this the assertion of liberty reiterated the humanity of
those, however lowly, who professed Christianity. To be Christian was to
merit treatment as a human being, a right that the incidents and reality of
servitude violated. This outlook is hardly an assertion of universal equality.
The emphasis on the sufferings of Christ fed into the growth of anti-Jewish
sentiment, sentiment against those supposed to be responsible for Christ's
torment.86 Equating human dignity with Christian status encouraged an atti­
tude toward the Jews that dehumanized and demonized them. Accusations of
ritual murder and cannibalism were linked to the cult of Christ's wounds,
and anxiety over the eucharistic real presence. The peasants' assertion of their
humanity as defined by adherence to the Christian religion certainly excused
in their minds, if it did not cause, the association of anti-Semitic violence
with antiseigneurial rebellions. 87
The peasants' agitation against serfdom in the late Middle Ages is there­
fore hardly to be represented as the origin or exemplar of human fraternity. It
was, however, aided by a certain appropriation of common ideas equating lib­
erty, humanity, and Christianity. The idea of Christian-as-human as opposed
to unchristian-as-unhuman reminds one of Carlo Levi's report on the peas­
ants of Lucania, who told him, "We're not Christian, we're not human be­
ings; we're not thought of as men but simply as beasts." 88 This fundamental
complaint would also underlie the peasant rebellions of the late Middle Ages.
Chapter' II
Peasant Rebellions of the
Late Middle Ages
This chapter looks at a few of the more notable peasant insurrections that
arose beginning in the fourteenth century. Most, although not all, were un­
�uccessful and present us with the problem of ascertaining an effaced set of
ideas. It would radically oversimplify to claim that these conflicts shared ide­
ological presuppositions, spread as they were over centuries and across geo­
_ _
graphical boundaries. Renouncing, therefore, any notion of a single and au­
thentic peasant "voice" consistent from 1320 to 152,5, we nevertheless can trace
ideas discussed in previous chapters mobilized in favor of the peasants.
Among these ideas are the fundamental equality of humanity as ongoing
rather than as permanently abrogated by a biblical or historical event; the fail­
ure of the nobility to live up to its duties of protection and the consequent
calling into question of their right to rule; the piety of the rustics, a popula­
_
tion not only ennobled by unjust suffering but close to God by reason of
their work and manner of life.
It is worth examining both the response of elite writers to the threat and
reality of peasant rebellion and peasants' justifications of their own conduct,
some of which can be apprehended through the distorting glass of hostile ac­
c?unts of contemporaries. Both kinds of discourse, attacking and justifying re­
sistance to authority, employ images and ideas delineated in previous chapters.
Some examples of the "peasants' answer" to a seigneurial and urban dis­
course of contempt were described earlier in connection with the Swiss and
other free communities. Although what survives in the way of songs, plays,
and chronicles cannot be considered unmediated peasant opinion, in cele­
brating their victories and justifying their claims to liberty, peasants (or their
spokesmen) accepted and made use of aristocratic commonplaces concerning
bravery, freedom, and piety. For the Swiss and the men of Dithmarschen, lib­
erty was to be gained by military courage and a steadfast faith allowing them
 The Revolt Against Servitude 258
to vanquish an overconfi dent and impious enemy. Texts produced during the
large-scale revolts of the later Middle Ages are less celebratory (after all, most
peasant revolts were defeated), more on the order of collections of grievances.
Their complaints employ images that should by now be familiar: assertions
of peasant humanity and protests against treatment as animals; denunciations
of arbitrary lordship as contravening divine law; refutations of claims of dom­
ination based on social function (the Three Orders) or historical precedent
(myths of freedom and subjugation). 1
Beyond protests against injustice, some texts offer more radical alterna­
tives. Well-known schemes, notably those of the Bohemian Taborites, Thomas
Milntzer's plan for Franconia, and Michael Gaismair's for the Tyrol, presented
utopian blueprints for a remodeled society. These celebrated instances have
prompted a tendency to think of all peasant movements of this period as pro­
claiming an egalitarian and apocalyptic ideal, the avenging hand of the Lord
in Chelcicky's vision. 2 Even in a less fervid setting, some scholars expect peas­
ant rebellions to depict a remade social order. In a recent account of the Flem­
ish revolt of 1323-28, William TeBral<:e tides his chapters with such phrases as
"For a World Without Corruption'' and "For a World Without Privilege," but
offers no evidence that such ideologies were actually put f01ward. 3
It is necessary to separate radical means (insurrection) from ends. that
might be described as extreme only if the Middle Ages had a completely
solid, hegemonic discourse of hierarchy and subordination. If the latter were
the case, any criticism or subversion of the social order would either have
been unthinkable or have caused hysteria. But what we find in the texts of
hostile contemporaries of peasant rebellion is consternation more often than
hysteria; and the former attitude did not necessarily prevent chroniclers or
other elite observers from imagining what peasant grievances were, or lead
them to entirely ignore such grievances in their reports of events.
This is especially true if elite discourse was not completely unified and
occasionally expressed dissent from the prevailing order. I have tried to show
that such dissent existed, my aim being not to argue that elites favored peas­
ant rebellions (although in Catalonia this seems to be a close approximation),
but to demonstrate that the moral and religious dubiousness of the existing
order was not altogether lost on the upper echelons and that the theoretical
texts and topoi they produced against the status quo could be put to practical
use, turned against fatalistic assumptions that the righting of wrongs must
await the next world. Hence the literalism of the peasants, the "carnal" read­
ing of Luther and of Scripture according to his remonstrance (and later vio­
lent condemnation) in 1525, and the assertion of human equality and the il­
licit nature of servitude in John Ball's sermon during the 1381 uprising. That
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 259
the peasants or their spokesmen might indeed take as literal what had been
conceived as theoretical argument or even stylized lament is the point of this
chapter. In discussing Duby's approach to laments over exploitation in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, I argued that such complaints, mere vent­
ings or rationales though they might have been, carried the possibility of a
more pointed questioning of society. What had perhaps been harmless and
academic ruminations when they were written could be regarded, by the era
of the rebellions, as ideas whose currency invited appropriation.
Here we confront the problems put forward by recent critical approaches
to subordination, specifically the problem of how to interpret popular move­
ments when surviving materials are for the most part hostile accounts of
those who put them down. I will defer until the conclusion my discussion of
the implications of hegemony and counterdiscourse. On the specific question
of medieval peasant uprisings I agree with Paul Strohm and Steven Justice,
who have recently thought about this problem in examining peasant de­
mands in England in 1381. Rather than attempt to piece together an authentic
voice from hostile texts by means of a sort of ventriloquism, they argue, one
can examine in a useful and not entirely naive way both chroniclers and what
seem to be peasant texts as reported by chroniclers.4 One looks not so much
for a hidden, separate peasant discourse as for a manner of contestation. De­
mands based on issues of justice, piety, and liberty were new with respect to
who was putting them forward and with what degree of immediacy, but their
content was traditional, hence comprehensible, and they were frightening not
because they were alien or "other" but because they were familiar.
Medieval Peasant Rebellions
Marc Bloch has remarked that peasant uprisings were as routine within the
medieval agrarian economy as strikes would be within the world of industrial
capitalism.5 This holds more for local, small-scale events than for the large re­
gional insurrections that characterized the late Middle Ages, from the Flemish
revolt of 1323-28 to the German Peasants' War of 1525. Sustained revolts did
of course occur in earlier centuries, and they did express ideas that would be
familiar to later advocates of equality. The Capuciati in late twelfth-century
France invoked claims of original equality and shared human dignity.6 Peas­
ants also were involved in the world of politics before the fourteenth century.7
Most of the conflicts before 1300, however, were local and centered around
particular grievances. Insofar as they involved claims for liberty, such claims
were based more on privileges for certain well-defined communities than on
sweeping arguments regarding natural or divine law. 8
 T he Revolt Against Servitude 260
After 1300 a large number of both local and larger regional peasant upris­
ings occurred. For the German Empire alone Peter Bierbrauer has counted 59
peasant insurrections between 1336 and 1525. 9 The distinction between "local"
and large-scale movements is somewhat misleading, but the rebellions that
left at least indirect evidence of motivations tend to be those that attracted
more than glancing attention from chroniclers. I have therefore limited the
following discussion to the better-known conflicts of the fourteenth to six­
teenth centuries, although setting them in the context of a climate of fre­
quent smaller revolts.
The best documented is of course the German uprising of 1525. From this
conflict innumerable printed pamphlets listing grievances and demands
(Flugschriften) have survived, providing a record of arguments intended for
the consumption of other peasants (witness the use made of the model
Twelve Articles of the Peasants ofSwabia) and as a remonstrance. For the other
conflicts-in England, Catalonia, and Hungary-one is forced to rely on a
thin dossier, which nevertheless contains material evocative of themes we
have traced before.
The English Rising ofI38I
The immediate cause of the English rebellion was the imposition of a poll tax
by the royal government. Resistance to the tax began in May 1381. Rebels
from Kent and Essex marched on London in June, congregating at Black­
heath and Mile End. The most dramatic phase of the rebellion-the execu­
tion of Archbishop Simon Sudbury, the burning of John of Gaunt's palace,
the invasion of the Tower of London, and the death of Wat Tyler at Smith­
field-took place on and around the Feast of Corpus Christi. The festive in­
version of social power and propriety that took place during the rebels' brief
hold on the capital has been linked, both by contemporaries and by recent
observers, to the traditional celebrations of Corpus Christi. 10 The significance
of the date might also have affected the planning of the convergence on Lon­
don, which was more a planned, coordinated movement than a spontaneous
mob activity. 11
What were the demands of those who revolted? On the one hand they
seem to have involved a radical political restructuring that would, in effect,
have abolished the nobility. Rodney Hilton describes the rebels' goal as that
of imposing a state ruled by a king with a very circumscribed church and al­
together without nobles, thus essentially the king and common people with
few intermediaries. 12 On the other hand, the agenda of the local rebels (those
who did not flock to London to confront the king) was not so different from
Peasant Rebellions of the Late Middle Ages 261
that of previous movements that had aimed at restoring a supposed earlier
just relation between lords and men without eliminating lordship altogether. 13
Recent scholarship has tended to emphasize not only the coherence of peas­
ant aims but also their connections to older ideas of justice, especially with
regard to complaints of arbitrary lordship. Whether the rebels were or were
not inspired by Wyclif or Langland's Piers Plowman is now again debated af­
ter a long period when theories of such influence were dismissed as overly
imaginative. 14 There do seem to be connections between the peasant move­
ment and literate high culture. We can reconstruct some idea of peasant ide­
ology even from the works of hostile chroniclers who were intent on portray­
ing the peasants as unreasoning savages.
While the peasants in London demanded the abolition of lordship, local
movements made more moderate challenges to onerous and arbitrary inci­
dents and rights of lordship, calling for rights to use common woods and
meadows, rights to hunt game, and an end to monopolies and death duties. 15
Even seemingly moderate demands, such as the right of tenants of St. Al­
bans to use hand-mills, had radical symbolic significance and imagery. In an
earlier rebellion the abbot of St. Albans had confiscated hand-mills that had
allowed tenants to thwart his efforts to compel them to bring their grain to
his mill for a fee. The abbot used the stone hand-mills as paving for the floor
of his parlor. In 1381, they were dug up and split into fragments to be given
out as proof that the rebels (townsmen and peasants) had accomplished their
goal and as a symbol of their solidarity, a token of communion. 16
Although chroniclers such as Thomas Walsingham described the rebels as
rustics, or more pointedly as "most vile rustics," "barefoot ribald men," or
"abject peasants," it has long been recognized that among the rebels were
members of village officialdom, artisans, and others from London and its en­
virons. 17 The fact that many of those involved in the revolt were leaders of
rural communities, and that Kent in particular did not have villeinage but
rather a custom khown as gave/kind by which tenants were legally free, has
led some observers to doubt that the event can accurately be described as a
peasant revolt or that the rebels' demands for the abolition of servitude
should be taken seriously.18 I would argue that a central part of this move­
ment was indeed a peasant revolt. Studies of the rebels who did not march on
London show that their demands concerned seigneurial and manorial juris­
diction and administration, in particular serfdom and claims to levy exactions
by reason of lordship over villeins. 19 As in other great rebellions of the period,
in the English Rising opportunities afforded by the weakness of government
or alliances with other groups did not obscure the issues of status and rural
lordship that most concerned peasants. Those who came to London and held
 The Revolt Against Servitude 262
the young King Richard II hostage went beyond the expression of grievances
against taxation and the corruption of royal offic.ials to demand the abolition
of servitude and a radical alteration of lordship.10 The revolt resulted from a
combination of what might be called "political" circumstances, involving
both grievances against governmental administration and tensions in the re­
lationship between landlords and tenants.
The Black Death of 1348 and 1349 and the consequent radical diminution
of population had altered rural economic and social relationships. Squeezed
by rising wages and falling prices for agricultural products, landlords at­
tempted to control more closely those tenants who remained by limiting
wage increases, restricting freedom of movement, and levying exactions that
could be claimed from servile tenants. Not only were peasants' expectations
of improvement thus frustrated, but in many instances their social condition
was lowered as lords either imposed servitude on those previously considered
free or coerced those who had been allowed to escape supervision. Between
1350 and 1381, marriage fines increased in frequency and amount, those who
departed from tenancies illegally were more vigorously pursued, prohibitions
on serfs' acquiring of free land were enforced, and court perquisites and other
jurisdictional privileges were increased. Lords also attempted to restrain up­
ward pressure on wages (the result of the diminished supply of labor) by en­
listing the aid of the state. The Ordinance of Laborers (1349) and the Statute
of Laborers (1351) required the able-bodied to accept work and prohibited
wages from surpassing their pre-plague levels. While this legislation was of­
ten evaded, it was also vigorously enforced and widely resented.21
The seigneurial reaction was motivated by economic considerations
rather than a desire for social control, but its effect was to sharpen the resent­
ment of tenants against servitude. Those who were legally of villein status
now saw a disparity between their opportunities and obligations and those of
their free neighbors, who were more able to take advantage of a favorable la­
bor and rental market. 22 Christopher Dyer, a careful observer of the entire
sweep of medieval English social and economic history, writes of a "second
serfdom" imposed by lords in the years leading up to the great rebellion.23
The primary motive for revolt was the conflict between peasants' expectations
of improved negotiating positions and their masters' attempts to preserve or
reimpose servile dues and arbitrary lordship.
Questions of freedom and servitude were not exclusively focused on mat­
ters of legal status, but neither were they mere rhetorical masks for other de­
mands. What was at issue both before and after 1381 was the ability of lords to
constrain their tenants by overturning or undermining traditions and prac­
tices favorable to peasants. This background lends to many of the revolts, in
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 263
England and elsewhere, a seemingly conservative character, with the peasants
defending the "good old law" against attempts to consolidate holdings or to
regularize obligations. Radical means (violent insurrection) were deployed for
conservative ends, to restore what was perceived as an earlier just order. Peas­
ants did not need a paradigm shift or a revolutionary religious sentiment to
desire the overthrow of at least certain aspects of the seigneurial regime. Peas­
ant grievances made use of commonly agreed-upon definitions of liberty,
servitude, human equality, and Christ's sacrifice.
Long before 1381, persistent lawsuits and local revolts had been sparked
by changes in manorial custom imposed by landlords.24 In the thirteenth and
early fourteenth centuries, before the economic consequences of the disaster
of 1348-49 had unfolded, lords attempted to rationalize their holdings and to
define their tenants as villeins. In the mid-thirteenth century, Robert de
Mares and then his widow, Sibyl, attempted to reduce the status. of the vil­
lagers of Peatling Magna in Northamptonshire to villeinage, asserting the
right to tallage at will and the collection of a marriage fine (merchet). 25 The
inhabitants of Peatling Magna won their case in 1261. Not so fortunate were
their neighbors in Stoughton, who lost their claims to freedom to Leicester
Abbey in 1276.26 A poem written at the abbey on that occasion asked, "What
can a serf do unless serve, and his son?" It answered: "He shall be a pure serf
deprived of freedom./ The law's judgment and the king's court prove this."
Beginning around 1277, the men of the villages of Darnell and Over in
Cheshire quarreled with their lord, the abbot of Vale Royal, over his claims
that they owed huge death duties, leyrwithe upon marriage of a daughter, and
various annoying services (feeding the abbot's puppies, keeping his wild
horses and bees).27 The villages had formerly belonged to the crown, and the
conditions under their new master were perceived as dramatically inferior.
The Darnell villagers had complained to King Edward I shortly after the gift
was made. The Icing is supposed to have told a throng of men carrying plow­
shares, "As villeins you have come, and as villeins you shall return." There en­
sued a long series of suits and acts of violence. The villagers rose up against
the abbey in 1336, complaining that they were free and that the abbot had im­
posed on them the obligations of villeins. They petitioned Sir Hugh de Fren
(justice of Chester), King Edward III, Parliament, and Queen Phillippa. The
queen ordered the abbot to restore what he had despoiled, but after the abbot
appeared before the rulers, they once again declared the villagers villeins.
They ambushed the abbot in Rutland on his way back from the court, man­
aging to kill his groom before being captured. They threw themselves upon
the abbot's mercy and were compelled to perform repeated ceremonies
demonstrating their unfree status. One is struck not only by the persistence
 The Revolt Against Servitude 264
of these unfortunate tenants of Vale Royal but by their touching faith in the
judicial process of the realm, a faith similar to that exhibited by the tenants of
Kempten in southern Germany over a century later.
Peasant movements seeking legal redress were organized before 1381. Op­
position to arbitrary treatment in the fourteenth century is evident in the pe­
tition of the villagers of Albury in Hertsfordshire to Parliament in 1321-22 over
seizures and imprisonment perpetrated by their lord. Numerous complaints
were registered in various localities by tenants attempting to prove their free
status against lords' claims to hold them as serfs, as for example at Elmham in
Suffolk (1360) and Great Leighs in Essex (1378).28 No fewer than 40 villages in
the south of England in 1377 were swept by what a contemporary called the
"Great Rumor": a movement employing Domesday Book to assert personal
liberty and oppose labor-service demands.29 By purchasing certified copies of
extracts from Domesday (exemplifications) referring to their tenancies, the vil­
lagers attempted to prove that they formed part of the ancient demesne of for­
mer crown lands whose tenants should be protected by the royal courts. The
peasants who submitted Domesday exemplifications considered them proof of
freedom from villein status altogether. Parliament and the Royal Council re­
jected attempts to use Domesday in this fashion, but the effort shows the
peasants' knowledge of law, belief in its efficacy, and a continuity between ac­
tions at law and local organized opposition, as among the tenants of Vale
Royal and St. Albans, which brought pressure by extralegal means.
Many of the locales involved in the 1381 revolt had experienced earlier
suits or acts of insubordination, and a sample of individuals identified as
rebels in 1381 shows that many of them already had confronted their lords
over fines or servile status.30 At issue in 1381 and before were questions of rent,
service, and other obligations of tenants that lords had attempted either to
impose, reimpose, or preserve in an environment of what can fairly be termed
rising expectations. Questions of status were inextricably linked with these
quarrels over revenues because if lords could show that those who com­
plained were villeins, they could prevent them from appealing to the public
courts.31 The petitions for freedom from servitude in 1381 were not a cover for
more practical, economic conflicts but the point at issue.
Such demands were couched according to a traditional vocabulary, al­
though the conclusions and programs that followed might be more radical.
According to Thomas Walsingham's report on John Ball's famous sermon to
the peasants assembled at Blackheath on the day of Corpus Christi itself, Ball
argued on the basis of the proverb about Adam and Eve that all were created
equal by nature. Servitude had been introduced contrary to God's will, by the
wickedness of men (thus not by some primordial, divinely punished trespass).
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 265
Had God wished to create serfs, He would have established right at the be­
ginning who was a serf and who was a lord.32
Ball's sermon is known through Walsingham and Froissart. According to
their reports, Ball did not explicitly invoke Christ's sacrifice and the freedom
His blood purchased-for all humanity, a traditional theme in Corpus Christi
sermons. One of the letters attributed to Ball in which the rebellion is pro­
moted, however, says that John the Miller has ground "smal smal smal" and
that "the kynges sone of hevene shalle pay for alle." The theme of Christ as
the wheat, ground in the divine mill for human salvation, is joined to that of
Christ ransoming humanity from its servitude to the devil.33
Steven Justice has shown how Ball's sermon and letter fit with five other
English letters preserved in Henry Knighton's chronicle rallying peasants to
the cause. They were probably not all written by John Ball, as used to be be­
lieved, but by other rebel spokesmen. Justice argues that the very act of fo­
menting rebellion by means of circular letters and broadsides is a defiant ges­
ture against those who regarded peasants as little better than animals, an act
announcing "the documentary competence of the insurgent population, a de­
termination not to be excluded from documentary rule." 34 One may not
completely accept this assessment of literacy as the crux of rebellion. Never­
theless, Justice allows us to appreciate not only that the chroniclers' view of
the peasants as unreasoning savages was false, but also that much of what they
report in the way of the burning of documents was not the act of frenzied
mobs intent on destroying education along with lordship.35 Not only were the
rebels rather selective in what they destroyed (Walsingham and the author of
the Westminster Chronicle acknowledged that the burning of the Savoy Palace
was carefully policed and that looting was strictly forbidden), they also did
not assume that all written records were tools of their subjugation.36
An exaggerated reverence for charters and ancient documents that had in­
spired earlier movements is apparent again in 1381. Townsmen at St. Albans
burned charters and rolls listing obligations but demanded possession of an
older parchment issued by King Offa with azure and gold capital letters,
which they believed had established their freedom from villeinage. At a safe
distance one can smile at the belief that the Mercian ruler wrote such a char­
ter, and at the abbot's bewildered promise to search even though he had never
seen or heard of it. In fact, however, the rebels were echoing (or rather turn­
ing to their advantage) the official monastic account of a foundation in 793. A
supposed charter of King Offa's was repeatedly confirmed by English rulers
from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries.37 Similarly we can be confident
that Bury St. Edmunds did not, in fact, possess a charter of liberties issued by
the monastery's founder King Cnut, as the rebels there claimed. 38 The rebels
 The Revolt Against Servitude 266
manifested the same reverence before writing when they insisted that the
king, whom they had in their power, write a charter freeing them from ser­
vice to their lords and pardoning them. Dissatisfied with the document they
obtained, they supposedly then ordered that men of law and others familiar
with legal documents be executed. 39
The peasants displayed an understanding of law and legal procedure both
during and before the rebellion of 1381. They also appear to have been capable
of using to their own purposes arguments constructed by Wyclif and Lang­
land for a different purpose and for a different audience. This appropriation
consisted in a deliberate shaping, not an ill-digested misunderstanding. Thus
Wyclif himself carefully joined his denunciations of excessive Church prop­
erty-holding with provisions for the orderly transfer of such property to secu­
lar rulers, while the peasants enunciated his program in terms of a more lit­
eral understanding of the canon-law phrase (which Wyclif frequently in­
voked) that the goods of the Church belong to the poor (bona ecclesiae sunt
bona pauperum). Wyclif may have meant his words to inspire the king and
the great men of his realm to action, but his address to the laity was, as
Steven Justice put it, "overheard" by the peasants. 40 Similarly, peasants took
the figure of Piers Plowman from Langland to serve as a vivid emblem of the
virtuous countryman and adapted Langland's allegory of "Truth" to the more
activist idea of imposing a new and just social order. 41
Protection of traditional local rights and an end to servile status were the
substance of the revolt. Despite the radical means by which the rebels' de­
mands were put forward, one observes the same faith in written documents
and legal concepts that informed earlier movements such as the "Great Ru­
mor" of 1377. Thomas Walsingham claims that the rebels wanted to kill
lawyers and justices and to burn all records they could find "so that the mem­
ory of ancient things would vanish," but he also says they hoped thereby to
procure their "original liberty'' (ingenua libertas). 42
In discerning (if not actually reconstituting) a peasant "voice" from the
hostile texts that have survived, scholars often want to see an authentic alter­
native ideology, what Justice calls the "idiom of rural politics" and Strohm
refers to as "rebel ideology." 43 Such ideas were sufficiently antithetical to the
dominant ways of thought for contemporary observers to regard them with
fear and ridicule. For Strohm, the chroniclers deliberately manipulated their
accounts to show the peasants in the worst possible light. For Justice, they
had no need to do so because they did not see the peasants as having any le­
gitimacy that would require distortion in the first place. The one interpreta­
tion finds a deliberate distortion, the other an inability to see that the peas­
ants might have some idea of what they were doing. 44
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 267
Naturally it would be hard to argue that Walsingham, Knighton, or
Froissart displayed any sympathy for the rebels, but they did put into their
mouths arguments that were neither novel nor incomprehensible. Froissart
says that the people of Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Bedford stirred because they
were kept in servitude and declared that no one should be a bondsman un­
less he betrayed his lord, as Lucifer betrayed God. They were not of treacher­
ous nature, for they were men, formed in the same fashion as their masters,
and so should not be kept like beasts.45 That bondage violates divine law, that
it was instituted by force, that it amounts to treating humans as animals­
these were by no means new ideas, and they were comprehensible to peasant
and lord alike.
It was possible for the chroniclers to imagine the terms in which peasant
insurrection would be justified and expressed. To say so does not minimize
their scorn, their occasional hysteria, or their portrayal of the rustics as vermin
or as domestic animals who have gone wild. Of course the chroniclers were
aghast at the danger to order and hierarchy, but they did not live in a world
completely deaf to the plaintive voice of those under them. Their reports de­
pict this voice in stylized terms, yet authentic details are revealed through
chinks in what might otherwise seem an effective hegemonic discourse.
It has been argued that the English chroniclers were more objective in
their opinions than the historians of the French ]acquerie of 1358, who de­
scribed this peasant uprising as an act of unmitigated savagery. 46 Yet even
chroniclers of the ]acquerie varied in their attributions of rational motives to
the rebelling peasants and of blame to the nobility for causing the uprising in
the first place.47 Walsingham, Knighton, Froissart, and the Anonimalle
Chronicle did not have to acknowledge the legitimacy of peasant demands to
reproduce them in a way that is legible not only to the modern critic or his­
torian inclined to be sympathetic to the rebels' cause but to contemporary
members of the literate elite who were not.
The Catalan Civil Wttr, I462-I486
I have written elsewhere about the ideological background to this protracted
conflict, the only successful large-scale peasant revolt in late-medieval Europe,
and so will not linger over it here. Instead I will simply attempt to point out a
process of appropriation, contestation, and comprehensibility in peasant de­
mands, which in this case quite clearly centered on the abolition of servitude.
The servile peasants of northern Catalonia ("Old Catalonia'' as distin­
guished from the territories to the south and west wrested from Islam in the
twelfth century) were known in the late Middle Ages as remences, a Cata-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 268
lanized version of the Latin redimencia (redemption). These tenants made up
about one half of the rural population of Old Catalonia and had been subor­
dinated in several stages, beginning perhaps as early as the eleventh century
but culminating in the decades around 1200, when restrictions on their free­
dom were first effectively defined and enforced. 48 They were subject to a
group of customary levies that included a "redemption," or manumission
payment, which gave the name to their condition. The exactions were collec­
tively known as the "bad customs" (mals usos), even in official documents (a
circumstance revealing something of the limits of euphemism in the Middle
Ages). The bad customs included the right to require heavy death payments
in cases where there was no adult male heir (exorquia) or in the event of in­
testate death (intestia). In addition, lords could confiscate as much as one
third of the property of a peasant whose wife committed adultery and left
him (a right with the humiliating name of cugucia, i.e., cuckoldry). The Cat­
alan lords also held a legal right to "mistreat" their servile tenants, who could
not appeal to the public courts for relief
The actual success of the sustained peasant revolt is due to the compli­
cated circumstances of the Catalan Civil War that pitted an alliance of urban,
noble, and parliamentary groups against an unpopular ruler whose political
and military survival depended in significant measure on the support of peas­
ant armies.49 The political context of the struggle does not obscure the con­
sistent purpose of the peasant demands to put an end to servitude. Indeed,
the king owed much of his unpopularity to a policy instituted by his prede­
cessors that favored the peasants and that opportunistically, inconsistently,
but nevertheless dangerously (from the nobles' point of view) raised the pos­
sibility of their liberation.
What we lack from this war (as from every peasant movement before
1525) is substantial evidence of how peasants might have framed their objec­
tions to their subjugation. We do have the curious document from shortly be­
fore 1450 regarding the organizing of peasant syndicates, as discussed in the
previous chapter. It begins by invoking the letter of Gregory the Great, ac­
cording to whom Christ assumed human flesh in order to restore to us that
original liberty taken from us by the bond of servitude.50 The document then
denies that serfdom is the legacy of cowardly Christian peasants who failed
to aid Charlemagne, refuting this notion by the counterclaim that the ances­
tors of the remences had not been Christians at all but in fact Muslims.
As an argument against serfdom, the prologue follows the pattern of
much of the rest of Europe in pointing to Christ's sacrifice (especially as in­
terpreted through the letter of Pope Gregory) as the basis for a Christian lib­
erty that servitude violated. Catalonia as a whole demonstrates the possibility
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 269
of constructing a moral argument against servitude in the absence of a reli­
gious reform movement. Unlike Germany in 1525 or England in 1381 (if one
accepts the connection between the Rising and Wyclif ), fifteenth-century
Catalonia witnessed no religious revolutionary sentiment. The Church, to be
sure, owned a large number of unfree peasants, but the revolt neither targeted
churches nor expressed any particular anticlericalism. The Catalan peasant
movement shows the possibilities for achieving a radical agenda within a tra­
ditional vocabulary.
Catalonia also demonstrates more clearly than other nations the fissures
that undermined the unity of the powerful classes. The crown did not con­
sistently side with the peasants, but its grudging support and dependence on
peasant armies led to the abolition of servitude in 1486 after the resolution of
the civil war. Even aside from the opportunistic alliance, however, members
of the royal court and jurists harbored serious doubts about whether servitude
could be justified, and suspicion that it violated religious, natural, and na­
tional law was widespread.51
The Hungarian Revolt ofI5I4
The Hungarian peasantry launched a short-lived but powerful revolt from
April to July of 1514.52 What had begun as a crusade against the Turks rapidly
evolved into a holy war against the nobility, who stood accused by the peas­
ants of betraying the crusade by exploiting their tenants rather than defend­
ing the realm. Hungarian royal and ecclesiastical authorities attempted to
cancel the crusade, but the result was a full-scale uprising. The now-rebellious
crusaders were led by a frontier captain referred to in the sources as George
Zeckel, or Gyorgy Szekely (with other variations), known later as Gyorgy
D6zsa. He was victorious against a baronial army in Eastern Hungary at
Nagylak on May 24 and continued to operate with some success in the east
until the failed siege of Temesvar (now Rumanian Timisoara) in July.
Janos Zapolya, voivod of Transylvania, led the army that put down the re­
bellion, defeating D6zsa outside of Temesvar and executing him in a bar­
barous manner that astounded contemporaries. While musicians played and
(according to one report) sung a Te Deum, D6zsa was placed on an iron
throne which was then heated while he was "crowned" with an iron circlet.
Partially roasted in this manner but still alive, D6zsa was offered to his fol­
lowers, who had been starved and were now forced to eat his flesh. Those
who refused were immediately dispatched to encourage the others.53
Even in an era accustomed to horrifying public executions, this made an
impression. D6zsa's terrifying punishment would serve as the quintessence of
 The Revolt Against Servitude 270
13. The execution of Gyorgy D6zsa. Woodcut illustration from Stephanus Tau­
rinus, Stauromachia (Vienna, 1519).
cowardice and cruelty for Montaigne seventy years later.54 The most famous
contemporary illustration of D6zsa's death, a woodcut dating to 1519, evokes
the crucifixion of Christ, with a mocking crown being placed upon D6zsa's
head as tormentors surround him (Fig. 13). A very early report of the rebel­
lion, printed in Nuremberg in 1514, appeared in a revised edition that in­
cluded a report of D6zsa's end and an engraving that shows a more peaceful
martyrdom, the rebel leader crowned by thorns (Fig. 14). As Marianna Birn­
baum notes, without the two musicians and the man biting the calm figure,
the scene would be readily identifiable as a depiction of Christ, the Man of
Sorrows. 55
Legislation enacted as the result of the war was also harshly if less spec-
'2'ieautf rut·fo gercbcbto iftim -sn�
gerlanbt1mit beti ltrcuraern/,:,tmt> aud; t>ar8ey wie man
ber <Crelleer l,4ulltm411 vat gefangen �tmb get9bt
scd,el Jo:g.
14. The execution of Gyorgy D6zsa. Woodcut illustration
from the pamphlet Die auffrur so geschehen ist im Ungelandt mit
den Creutzern (Nuremberg, 1514). Wolfenbiittel, Herzog August
Bibliothek: 198.13 Hist. (2). Reprinted by permission of the
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbiittel, Germany.
tacularly repressive. It confirmed and strengthened the servile status of the
Hungarian peasantry, restricting movement from one lord to another and de­
claring perpetual servitude as the consequence of the insurrection. 56
The wars against the Turks had given the Hungarian peasants more mil­
itary skill and experience than peasants had elsewhere in fifteenth- and
 The Revolt Against Servitude 272
sixteenth-century Europe. The appeal of a crusade was unusually strong and
easily turned into a denunciation of the failure of the nobility to live up to its
putative role as the protector of society. Rather than defending the land, it
was argued, the aristocracy preferred to oppress their peasants in an even
more barbarous fashion than the Turks. 57 The perceived breakdown of the
functional mutuality of orders was hardly unique to Hungary, but was felt
there with more immediate anger. Nobles' dereliction was all the more obvi­
ous and reprehensible in the face of a nearby infidel enemy.
Like Poland and Bohemia, Hungary experienced a serious erosion of
peasant liberty at the end of the Middle Ages. The overwhelming majority of
the Hungarian population were dependent tenants referred to in documents
as jobagiones (Latinized from the Hungarian jobbdgy). The more prosperous
elements had acquired certain economic liberties in the fifteenth century,
producing for the market, even settling in new towns (oppida) without
thereby loosening the legal ties to their lords. The establishment of seigneur­
ial market-towns for a time benefited both landlord and tenant, but toward
the end of the fifteenth century, attempts were made to reinforce the depen­
dent status of all peasants. As agrarian prices rose, landlords imposed heavier
labor-service obligations to replace fixed monetary rents. They enforced this
shift and maintained their supply of peasant labor by limiting the ability of
remaining manorial tenants to leave the land. They also dramatically in­
creased customary exactions in money and kind. The status of the peasant
tended to be universally degraded to that of serf, a process codified by the
laws of 1514 and 1521 but already under way in the fifteenth century. 58
Although in Catalonia a revolt against serfdom accomplished its aims and
in England rebellious incidents and erosion of servile status persisted despite
repression of the peasants, in Hungary, as in much of east-central Europe,
serfdom would effectively be maintained until at least the end of the eigh­
teenth century, legally until 1848. 59
The Hungarian war touches on a number of points already raised in dis­
cussing the transmission of ideas of justice and subordination. As described
previously, Hungary, like Catalonia, borrowed from France the theory of a
dual descent of the populace from a courageous and a cowardly population.
The Hungarian peasants were thought to be descended from those who in
(mythical) Hunnic times had failed to answer the call to arms. During the pe­
riod in which France and Catalonia were transforming this literary theme
into the basis for a legal justification for servitude, first Simon of Keza and
then Janos Thur6czy explained the differences in status among Hungarians
by reference to crucial acts of bravery and cowardice at the founding of the
nation and its institutions.
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 273
In Hungary, as in Catalonia, social myths that might at first seem mere
learned fantasies were popularized by lords eager to convert an occasional, by
no means universal form of unfree tenure to the basic rule of tenancy. In
Hungary this ambition was fulfilled in the aftermath of 1514: the Hungarian
peasantry was legally degraded to serfdom. Istvan Werboczy, author of the au­
thoritative legal collection the Tripartitum (published in 1517), justified this
treatment as punishment for the rebellion but also derived arguments for a
retrospective servitude-for a primordial separation of free and unfree Hun­
garians-from thirteenth-century Hungarian adaptations of French legends
of Charlemagne. 60 Serfdom, which gradually weakened in France and was
thrown off in Catalonia, would be imposed and nearly universalized in early­
modern Hungary.
Social images and ideas concerning the moral basis for serfdom became
practical justifications in Hungary. What had been derivative and antiquarian
came to structure legal beliefs, not merely as a hortatory rationale but as an
effective discourse of repression. Similar transformation of ideas and mental­
ities can be traced in the peasants' program. Jeno Szucs has shown how tradi­
tional themes of Franciscan preaching were used by the peasant leaders of
1514 to explain their attack on the nobility. 61 Although the antinoble revolt
has often been related to the nearly simultaneous Protestant Reformation, or
to the earlier impress of the Hussite movement, Szucs demonstrated that the
ideological roots of the 1514 revolutionaries were Catholic and conservative,
not proto-Protestant, apocalyptic, or even particularly anticlerical.
A similar interplay of action and ideas appears in the peasants' accusa­
tions of deceit, treachery, and cowardice on the part of the nobility for aban­
doning the crusade. Here the peasants leveled against the nobility the very
charge of cowardice in the face of military threat that had been associated
with serfdom for centuries. Finally, the very idea of the crusade itself and the
identification with the cross, sacrifice, suffering, and human equality mingle
what might easily be dismissed as elements of archaic thinking (a crusade in
the sixteenth century ) with a revolutionary program (abolition of the nobility,
abolition of servitude, and reduction of the number of bishops to one).
The end of serfdom and the throwing off of noble control were obvious
goals of the peasant crusade and were reported by chroniclers and partici­
pants. In most accounts D6zsa appears as the evil instigator of the rebellion.
King Vladislav wrote with evident satisfaction to the imperial legate, describ­
ing the execution with equanimity, even joy. 62 Among other things this grisly
text reflects a tendency to blame the entire niatter on D6zsa. A widely circu­
lated poetic account of the rebellion first published in 1519, the Stauromachia,
by Taurinus, presents D6zsa as militarily skillful and courageous, facing his
 The Revolt Against Servitude 274
death unrepentant. In language derived from Sallust's accounts of Marius and
Cataline, Taurinus has D6zsa inveigh against the "tyrants" who rule Hungary.
Although D6zsa anticipates a heavenly apotheosis as the "prince of peasants"
(regulus agricolum), he is in fact received in a thoroughly classical underworld
according to Taurinus's vivid and labored imagery.63 Another contemporary
chronicler, Ludovicus Tubero, blamed the rebellion at least partly on the op­
pressive conduct of the nobility toward their tenants, but still depicted D6zsa
as the evil manipulator of this resentment.64
D6zsa and other prominent rebels could be accused of leading otherwise
passive peasants into violent insurrection. D6zsa is portrayed with more
imagination than accuracy by sixteenth-century historians as haranguing his
followers and stirring them to bloodthirsty action.65 But according to more
immediate observers, it was not only D6zsa's supposed eloquence but the rus­
tics' innate weakness, timidity, and ignorance that led them into treason. In a
letter remitting the taxes of the loyal city of Kassa in Upper Hungary (mod­
ern Kosice, Slovakia), King Vladislav remarked that in many parts of Hun­
gary, "people led either by fear or by treachery wandered from the proper ob­
servance of loyalty."66 In a charter pardoning the chamberlain John Szokoly
for surrendering a castle to the rebels, the king singled out D6zsa for "seduc­
ing the rustics and servile populace with guile and with wicked persua­
sions."67 In the same document, however, Vladislav II also referred generally
to "evil and heretical men" who had incited rebellion by taking advantage of
the religious fervor of the populace and their natural desire to aid (as they
wrongly thought) the defense of the kingdom.68
The peasants could thus be depicted as credulous and easily misled. Af­
ter all, they thought they were embarked on a crusade (and the sources con­
tinued to refer to the rebels as "crusaders," as did even the voivod Zapolya in
pardoning the town of Des).69 A certain rhetoric of leniency appears even in
the text of the punitive laws reducing the peasants to permanent servitude.70
Here the king and parliament explained that although those who rebel
against their "natural lords" deserve capital punishment as traitors, the peas­
ants were to be spared the death sentence unless guilty of murder or rape. Re­
calling by implication the juridical association of treason with reduction to
slavery, the ordinances of November 1514 present subjugation to "perpetual
rusticity" as a merciful alternative to a merited execution. The law explained
the practical impossibility of shedding so much blood, even if deserved, lest
"the entire peasantry, without which the nobility would not fare very well, be
wiped out."71 The peasant leaders were to be executed, but the rest, having
paid reparations, were to be spared and degraded to servitude. It might be
tempting to do away with the peasantry, but the other orders of society de-
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 275
pend on them-a peculiarly grudging example of the commonplace that rus­
tic labor supports the privileged.
That the bulk of the peasantry acted out of ignorance might be a conve­
nient fiction when levying fines from the hapless survivors, but during the re­
bellion itself this was not the preferred way of thinking about what motivated
the rebels. The rebellion was most often described as a deliberate insurrec­
tion, the crusade being a mere pretext. In a letter written during the uprising
to the nobles of the county of Valko, the king lamented the "temerity and in­
solence displayed by the peasants and commoners under the name of a cru­
sade."72 Violent disobedience under the guise of a holy war would become a
formulaic description of the rebellion in retrospective accounts.73
The crusade was viewed either as a cover for the wicked machinations of
leaders or simply as a vehicle for the natural turbulence and subversion of the
peasants. The relatively indulgent assumption that the peasants could easily
be swayed from their natural loyalty was accompanied by fear that they were
always dangerous, barely tamed beasts held in check only by severe coercion.
Their "natural" condition was not loyalty but evildoing; the insurrection was
not the work of a few conspirators playing off rustic credulity but the result
of underlying rustic wickedness.
The comites of N6grad, Hont, Pest, and Heves, writing at the height of
the disturbances to their colleague in charge of the province of Abauj,74 open
their frantic communication with a denunciation of the murder, rape, and de­
struction perpetrated by the peasants calling themselves crusaders. They label
the rebels crucifixores (crucifiers) who call themselves crucifaros (crusaders,
those bearing the cross), persecutors rather than defenders of Christ and the
Cross.75 Their aim is to exterminate the nobility, and the letter calls on the
count of Abauj to help repress their "rage" and "furor" lest not only the no-·
bles but their wives and children suffer the peasants' barbarity. D6zsa is men­
tioned as the leader of the insurrection, but it is the rustics' innate savagery
that is said to have "boiled over" (ejferbuit).
The sources frequently refer to the "tumult" of the peasantry as if it were
a form of natural disaster, the instinct of an undisciplined mass that, given an
opportunity, is always ready to follow its evil nature and explode. The Italian
chronicler Giovanni Vitale, writing in November 1514, acknowledged that
some of the peasants might have assembled initially at Pest out of religious
devotion, but those who were sincere dispersed quickly when so ordered.
Those who persisted in rebellion Vitale excoriates as "impudent cattle" eager
to foment what might be considered "classic" atrocities such as impaling no­
bles before the eyes of their wives and children, or raping the wives while
their husbands were forced to watch. The rebellion is presented as an occa-
 The Revolt Against Servitude 276
sion for realizing an always potential lawlessness, lust, and rage. 76 The em­
blem of the terrifying wildness of the peasants is rape. As in other peasant re­
bellions, here chroniclers returned with obsessive horror to stories of rape as
graphic demonstrations of rustic savagery. 77
Occasionally the desire of the peasants to end servitude figured in con­
temporary descriptions of the rebellion. Writing to Pope Leo X in early July
1514, King Vladislav describes (in what might be said to be conventional
terms) the murders and sexual violations perpetrated by these rustics, worse
than Turks or Tartars, whose savagery is of unheard-of intensity, surpassing
that reported in histories and even tragedies. 78 Interestingly enough, Zeckel/
D6zsa is not mentioned. The peasants, "always eager for new things," have
struggled to throw off servitude. 79 This explains their insurrection against the
nobility and serves as prologue to the lurid accounts of their barbarity. What
we would consider rational or plausible explanations for rebellion are seam­
lessly joined to conceptions of an underlying savagery.
Any attempt to understand what the motivations of the peasants of 1514
might really have been runs up against the usual problems of the poverty of
sources and the prejudices of such accounts as do survive. There was neither
Flugschrift literature nor lists of grievances as there would be in Germany
shortly thereafter.
The closest thing to a program of the rebellion is a brief manifesto issued
by D6zsa supposedly from the town of Cegled in June 1514, at the point at
which the crusade had turned from the Turks to attack the nobles as the en­
emy.80 Here D6zsa calls himself the prince of the "blessed people who bear
the cross," a fixation on the symbolism of the cross reflecting Franciscan
apocalyptic tendencies. 81 Against this army of the elect the "infidel" nobles
have risen up to "violate" the crusade. It is the nobles therefore who are the
rebels, having thwarted the campaign against the Turks, for which they merit
excommunication and eternal damnation. 82
This document has received considerable attention because it fits with the
notion that D6zsa was responsible for formulating an ideological program out
of an otherwise inchoate body of peasant resentments. D6zsa is pictured by
sixteenth-century historians as giving a speech at Cegled to his followers. The
most plausible version is that given by Tubero, in which D6zsa rehearses a
number of familiar arguments denouncing the nobles' oppression of the peas­
antry: that servitude stems from human violence and greed, not nature; that
those who labor in the fields and support all others are robbed and enslaved;
and that God, "the author of your liberty," will protect the army of His right­
eous servants. 83
Unfortunately, even this relatively restrained and well-reasoned address
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 277
reported by Tubero has no basis in fact, although it may represent fairly
enough D6zsa's program and is another instance of chroniclers having some
idea of how peasant claims might be justified. Careful reconstruction of the
chronology and geography of the rebellion shows that D6zsa was not at
Cegled when the proclamation was issued (it was sent by D6zsa to his brother
Gregory in Cegled). He and his army were already in the field, far from
where the peasants were gathering in May and June. While the Cegled Proc­
lamation reflects D6zsa's justifications, he should not be thought of as ha­
ranguing peasants from the proverbial balcony. In any event, they appear to
have been capable of forming their own justifications for rebellion. 84
The Cegled Proclamation itself reflects earlier formulations of the cru­
saders' goals. A document purporting to be a summary of the original cru­
sading bull of Pope Leo X was composed in mid-May by Tamas Kecskes and
Lorine Meszaros, who, like D6zsa, described themselves as principes crucifer­
orum and who were recruiting in the county of Abauj (at some distance from
D6zsa's army). Their version of the crusade bull confers authority on the
principes cruciferorum, whereas the original reserved ultimate authority to the
pope, king, and archbishop. The poor are given more prominence, but most
importantly, the sanctions against those impeding the crusade (a previously
routine condemnation) are now specifically directed against lords who con­
tinue to exact unjust tribute from their tenants. They are to be excommuni­
cated tanquam membrum dyaboli (a locution found earlier in Hungarian Huss­
ite documents), and the community (tota conventus) is exhorted to rise up
against those attempting to extort from them.85 The Turkish threat not only
preserved the appeal of the crusade longer in Hungary than elsewhere but
gave a particular edge of outrage to complaints against the greed of the no­
bles. It had long been a common rhetorical strategy throughout Europe to
lament the mistreatment of peasants as worse than that meted out by Mus­
lims and "pagans." 86 The atmosphere of the Hungarian frontier (as well as
that of eastern and southern Austria) made comparison between noble and
Turkish greed and savagery more than a rhetorical device.
Peasant rebels accepted the aristocratic syllogism whereby military skill
and force conferred the rightful enjoyment of liberty. As if in answer to the
widely diffused myth of peasant cowardice, D6zsa mustered his followers by
sending around to sympathetic villages a bloody sword and impaling pole,
symbols of the grim realities of war and the penalties for cowardice. The
bloody sword, at least, accompanied the summons to the frontier soldiers, the
Szekely, according to the Transylvanian military regulations of 1463. 87 The
grim symbols also recall the alleged customs of the Huns in mustering the
populace, a test of bravery that explained the separation between nobles and
 The Revolt Against Servitude 278
serfs.88 Against this mytho-historical background the sixteenth-century peas­
ants could all the more pointedly present themselves as courageous warriors
while disparaging the nobles' failure to obey the military summons to the
crusade. The constitutional fiction of Simon of Keza was reversed: peasants
obeyed the call to battle that nobles shirked.
The Hungarian rebellion can be understood as a crusade in which a sense
of election galvanized long-standing resentments against the nobles. The
rapid spread of the rebellion argues for the preexistence of a nexus of ideas
encouraging and justifying revolt.89 Behind the crusade and the practical con­
cerns over land tenure can be discerned a sense of the breakdown of mutual­
ity of orders that extends to those not immediately involved in the circles of
rebellion.
The most elaborate and pointed criticisms of the nobility at the end of
the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century were offered by friars of
the Observant wing of the Franciscan order. In 1509 there were some 70 Fran­
ciscan houses in the kingdom; there had been only 25 in 1448. This efflores­
cence responded to the need for anti-Turkish preachers but also reflected a re­
discovery of apostolic poverty experienced in the fifteenth-century vicariate
of Bosnia-Hungary.90 Without doubt, much of the tone of the 1514 rebel­
lion-the sense of election visible in the Cegled Proclamation, for example­
is traceable to Franciscan preaching.
The mendicant orders had been given the task of preaching the Crusade
to the populace by Gregory IX.91 History offered precedents for the deviation
of both spontaneous crusade movements and popular crusades from the orig­
inal intentions of those who instigated them. The Shepherds' Crusade (Pas­
toureaux) of 1250, the Childrens' Crusade of 1212, and even the host sum­
moned by the preaching of Peter the Hermit at the time of the First Cru­
sade-all these movements combined belief in direct revelation with a
conviction that the knights were unable or unwilling to do what was neces­
sary to win God's favor for the success of the armed pilgrimage.
The Hungarian Crusade, however, amounted to something more than a
movement that escaped its (Franciscan) organizers. Certain Franciscans were
themselves instrumental in changing or expanding the target of popular
wrath. Through their preaching, members of the order inspired and even di­
rected the turn from anti-Turkish to antinoble movement. The centers of
peasant agitation in the late spring of 1514 correspond to the location of Ob­
servant houses, and three or four of the captains of the army were Francis­
cans.92 The degree to which the order was split by the events of 1514 can be
deduced from a manuscript discovered by Szucs in the Szechenyi National
Library of Budapest.93 This manuscript is a collection of 188 documents
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 279
(those that are datable are almost all from between 1509 and 1517) that deal
with "apostate" friars guilty of preaching rebellion to the peasants. The docu­
ments from after the war, which take the form of disciplinary inquiries to
purge apostates, reveal divisions extant before 1514 within the Observant
Franciscan order over preaching and social doctrines.
The influence of the Observant Friars was visible in terms of apocalyptic
reformism (as might be expected), but also in more conventional teachings of
human equality and denunciations of the oppression of the poor. Within a
traditional discourse concerning fundamental human equality, it was possible
to construct a compelling set of potentially revolutionary ideas. This is most
evident in the sermons of Oswald of Lasko (ca. 1450-1511), provincial vicar of
the Franciscans in Hungary, a figure of what might be considered the Fran­
ciscan establishment. Oswald embraced the conservative ideal of a mutuality
of orders, but his awareness that reality diverged severely from the organic
model led him to vivid and apparently influential denunciations of the pow­
erful.94 He elaborated on Augustine's statement from The City of God that
rulership without justice amounts to little more than robbery, and he de­
nounced princes who inflict unjust exactions and "devour" their serfs with
taxes and oppressive customs.95 They do not merit obedience, and it is licit to
defend oneself against an abusive superior.96 Oswald also defends those who
act out of righteous anger to chastise those who defy God. Although this pro­
nouncement is not specifically joined to the denunciations of servitude, the
condemnation of injustice and defense of the right to oppose it with force
could be read as more than laments over seigneurial violence, indeed as some­
thing approaching a right of insurrection. 97
Oswald's desire to restore a lost order led him to combine "Old-Law" with
divine-law arguments. Moreover, he rejected the fatalistic assumption that
wicked conduct results from a world fallen into universal sin and decay. What
provides a conceptual link between complaints about oppression and the the­
ory of righteous anger is Oswald's conviction that although the coming of An­
tichrist will bring suffering, an elect of those who follow the Cross will
emerge. This army will not comprise magnates and knights but the ignoble,
the weak, and the unlearned, who will impose the rule of God.98 The fierce
identification of the 1514 crusaders with the Cross and their conviction of elec­
tion in an antinoble crusade can be traced to Oswald of Lasko, whose sermons
were specifically directed, he informs the reader, to the poor and to unlearned
rustics.99 Beginning in 1510 the Franciscan authorities denounced those who
expounded dangerously on texts affording occasion for disobedience and sin.
The undisciplined wanderings of renegade friars and their subversive preach­
ing were also the objects of censure before and after the 1514 revolt.100
 The Revolt Against Servitude 280
It should be emphasized that Oswald of Lasko's sermons display little
originality, scarcely deviating from common discursive themes. Oswald went
further than others in justifying action and anger, but he worked with a pop­
ular theological vocabulary culled from the Church Fathers, Franciscan tradi­
tion, and earlier sermons rather than a radical or visionary reformism. The in­
fluence of Franciscans in Hungary can be demonstrated not only in the ge­
ography and leadership of the crusade, but in the way in which peasant
demands turned on denunciations of the nobles for destroying the mutual
service that justified their privileges. The threat of the Turks underscored the
unwillingness of the nobility to abandon their exactions and defend their
subjects, giving force to ideas that crystallized around the breakdown of mu­
tuality, the violation of human equality, and the question of how a just order
might be restored. Oswald himself seems to have given up such social criti­
cism after 1507, and it is clear that he did not see himself as excusing a large­
scale armed revolt, but in Hungary conventional attacks on oppression were
applied to particular circumstances not only to justify retrospectively but to
institute a popular movement.
The German Peasants'"War ofI525
Even more than the English and Catalan revolts, the German Peasants' War
has been viewed as something greater than a mere peasant insurrection. Sev­
eral factors underlie this perspective, among them an assumption that peas­
ants were unlikely to have acted on their own initiative and a concentration
on the two dramatic and lasting aspects of sixteenth-century German history:
the Reformation and the inability of the emperor (or anyone else) to achieve a
unified rule over German-speaking lands. Regarded as a crucial event in the
overall history of the German nation, the 1525 uprising was until recently an­
nexed to the perennial question of the origins of German disunity and early­
modern backwardness.
Scholars' rediscovery of peasant agency has tended to restore to our un­
derstanding of this war the actual demands of those who revolted. Neverthe­
less, it is still often maintained that the revolt of 1525 was not really about
agrarian grievances, or that it was touched off by the more progressive and ar­
ticulate forces of society. The historiography of the former East Germany, fol­
lowing the formulations of Friedrich Engels, considered 1525 an "early bour­
geois revolution," the assumption being that the real vanguard and significant
element in the movement came from the towns. 101 The importance of the
cities in the Reformation has also led non-Marxist historians to trace the ori-
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 281
gin of unrest to the cities, with the concomitant assumption that the coun­
tryside was acted on rather than enacting its own program. 102
The peasants might also be regarded as unwitting participants in the un­
successful struggle for German unity, their defeat marking the definitive tri­
umph of German particularism. 103 But the event that inevitably colors any
interpretation is of course the Reformation. The teachings of Luther, Bucer,
Karlstadt, and Zwingli emphasized the dignity of the laity, the ability of ordi­
nary people to interpret Scripture, the right to question authority and tradi­
tion, and a more favorable view of the common man. The Reformation is
thought to have inflamed peasant resentment, a sentiment already inspired
by the long habit of anticlericalism. 104
The charged climate of religious ferment that prevailed just before and
during 1517 is supposed to have produced a crucial change in the nature of
peasant demands. No longer defending what they perceived as traditional re­
lations with their lords, relations that protected communal rights, the peas­
ants now took up arms for a universal idea of social-religious justice. Instead
of fighting for local privileges or custom, they now demanded a reordering of
society in accord with divine justice. Giinther Franz gave this distinction its
classic formulation as that between a conservative "Old Law," a circumscribed
defense of custom, and a radical "Godly Law," a more sweeping application
of religious doctrine to social conditions. 105 Beginning in the mid-fifteenth
century with the so-called Bundshuh movements, but gaining substantial
momentum with the reception of Luther's teachings, peasants of the frag­
mented German seigneurial jurisdictions could unite in a cause that tran­
scended mere quarrels over local grazing rights. According to Franz, a struggle
on the scale of the 1525 war required belief in a widely applicable divine law
that questioned all forms of seigneurial oppression, and this belief really be­
gan with the Reformation.
The German historiographic distinction between conservative (Old Law)
and radical (Godly Law) movements resembles that invoked by comparative
historians of peasant movements to account for the difference between purely
localized insurrections in the name of a supposedly better past and uprisings
of wider appeal focused on building a new form of society. 106 Long before the
sixteenth century, however, justifications for revolt combined particular griev­
ances against exactions, servitude, and arbitrary lordship with a general asser­
tion of human liberty and divine law. Servitude was among the most impor­
tant issues in 1525, and the complaints about it were neither new nor com­
pletely dependent on the radical energies and vocabulary generated by the
Reformation.
 T he Revolt Against Servitude 282
Servitude and seigneurial rights attendant on serfdom were major issues
in German revolts that antedated 1525. What might seem to have been purely
economic struggles over taxes or levies were erimeshed in questions of status.
Thus, for example, lords attempted to increase revenues by reimposing large
succession fines, but doing so required depriving peasants of the right to in­
herit freely, which in turn meant placing them in servitude. The extension of
territorial lordship, the demands of lords in the face of declining revenues,
and questions of servile status were intermingled.
The previous chapter touched on the struggle between the abbot of
Kempten and his tenants over their status. A large number of similar revolts
boiled up in small south-German territories where feudal dues were the prin­
cipal source of revenues for petty secular and ecclesiastical landlords: Wein­
garten (1432), Schlussenl'ied (1438), Weissenau (1448), Staufen (1466), Salem
(1468), St. Peter (1500), Habsburg lands of Triberg (1500), Ochsenhausen
(1501-2), Berchtesgaden (1506), Rufach (1514), and Solothurn (1513-15).107 Re­
gional conflicts between 1442 and 1517 (the Bundshuh uprisings) also con­
cerned servitude.108 Restriction of movement, inheritance taxes, and the
seigneurial right to impose new levies figured in the revolt of Appenzell
against the monastery of Saint Gall at the opening of the fifteenth century.
This revolt exemplifies a successful radical result stemming from what was
perceived as a defense of Old Law, for the peasants rose up to prevent the
monastery from making its exactions more onerous and arbitrary. 109 Sei­
gneurial economic pressure on tenants increased during the fifteenth century,
especially in Swabia and the Upper Rhine, a development aggravated by the
reimposition of servile status, which the peasants resisted in many cases, al­
beit with limited effect.110
In 1525 these same quarrels reappeared. Many sorts of grievances came to­
gether in that fateful year, from objections to war levies to protests against vi­
olation of fixed rents, but the issue of serfdom covered the widest territory. In
an analysis of 54 grievance lists from Upper Swabia (consisting of 550 individ­
ual grievances), Peter Blickle found that 90 percent of the complaints de­
nounced servitude and that serfdom was the single most important griev­
ance.111 Moreover, this was not merely a negotiating strategy but a crucial de­
mand. Of 20 such texts concerning ecclesiastical jurisdictions in Upper
Swabia, 15 (comprising 18 articles) call for the abolition of serfdom. Only one
envisions its mere diminution.112 While the greatest number of complaints
about servitude come from southwestern Germany, serfdom was also at issue
in revolts in the diocese of Augsburg, Alsace, and the archiepiscopal princi­
pality of Salzburg.113
Peasant Rebellions of the Late Middle Ages 283
The peasants of Sttihlingen (in the Black Forest), where the first revolts
began, described their opposition to servitude in these terms:
We are by right born free, and it is no fault of ours or of our forefathers that we
ha�e been subj�cted to serfdom, yet our lords wish to have and to keep us as
then- own property, and consider that we should perform everything that they
as k, as though we ;"ere born serfs; and it may come in time to pass that they
_
will also sell us. It rs our plea that you adjudge that we should be released from
serfdom, and no one else be forced into it, in which case we will perform for
our lords what we are obliged to perform of old, excepting this burden. 114
!"1ere servitude as p�nishment for some past or present transgression is re­
Jected. The other articles of the grievance list deal with specific exactions, but
they follow from the ability of the lords to treat servile tenants with ever­
greater harshness and arbitrariness.
The peasants of Sttihlingen were not attacking servitude as such but
rather denying their particular liability. They had not been born in servile
condition; therefore their lord could not impose it. Elsewhere, broader com­
plai�ts were voiced against the very nature of servitude. At Embrach (near
_
Zunch) and in rural lands subject to the imperial city of Rothenburg, for ex­
.
ample, it was argued that to hold another in subjugation violates Scripture
and the unity of all in Christ. 115
Peasants asserted claims of human freedom against servitude without
specifically invoking Christian doctrine at Altbirlingen (part of the Baltrin­
gen allia�ce), Wieder?eltingen, Rheinfelden, and Mtihlhausen (in Hegau).116
Other gnevanc�s agamst serfdom were expressed in more religious language:
_
only God can hCitly own a person; He alone is really Lord. Peasants of the
Gemeinde (l�cal community) of Attenweiler (Baltringen) protested to the
abbey of Weingarten that they were "burdened with servitude, for they wish
to have no other lord but Almighty God alone who has created us. For we be­
lieve Holy Scripture, which is not to be obscured, that no lord should possess
_
others [kam Aigenmensch haben soil], for God is the true Lord."117 In the re­
gion of Schaffhausen, villagers complained that Scripture prohibited anyone
other than God Himself from possessing Aigenleute (serfs).118
To what extent did religious discontent and the Reformation stimulate the re­
volt of 1525? Grievances were everywhere informed by an idea of scriptural
authority and the right of resistance based on a higher law. The Twelve Arti­
cles of the Peasants ofSwabia (March 1525) describes not only serfdom but re­
strictions on fishing and hunting as contrary to the word of God and sup-
 T he Revolt Against Servitude 284
ports its very specific and material claims with references to Scripture.119 Such
manifestos grew out of Lutheran resistance theory, according to Martin
Brecht, and the demands reflect a religious-social program based on Lutheran
biblicism: the right of a community to elect a pastor, rejection of serfdom as
contrary to Christian equality of salvation, the love of one's neighbor, and the
protection of the weak (the latter was the basis for opposition to death duties,
for example, which fell on widows and orphans).120
Glinther Franz argued that the Reformation did not create an entirely
new justification but that Lutheranism made possible a rebellion on a much
greater scale than had been reached previously.121 Luther brought a new
awareness of equality and a vivid language and symbolism, providing, in
Oberman's words, "a means to read the timetable of God." 122
Luther himself hardly mentioned peasants or oppressive lordship before
1525. His warnings, fury, and later unapologetic defense of his "harsh" views
all reflect an immediate response to what he saw as a gross misunderstanding
of his views on Christian freedom, a carnal, worldly literalism at odds with
the spiritual freedom he advocated.123 The opinion that the peasants were in­
spired by an opportunistic misreading of Luther has had some modern de­
fenders,124 but scholars have shown more interest in learning what aspects of
Luther's teaching or of the political situation resulting from the Reformation
provided openings for constructing a large-scale movement.
Luther's pamphlet T he Freedom of a Christian, published in 1520, clearly
dealt with spiritual freedom and spiritual equality, but such ideas could be
used to apply to earthly liberty as well. The widely circulated pamphlet Dia­
logue Between a Priest and a Bailiff (ca. 1521, attributed to Martin Bucer) cites
Luther in advocating human freedom against servitude.125 The Memmingen
Bundesordnung of March 7, 1525, containing peasant demands, ends with a
list of learned authorities who have demonstrated and defended Godly Law,
including Luther, Melanchthon, Osiander, and Zwingli.126 Thus even if
Luther and other reformers were "misunderstood," their ideas certainly lent
themselves to appropriation. The Reformation for a time destabilized imper­
ial and princely control, showed how authority could be successfully chal­
lenged, and furthered (if it did not create) a language of scriptural authority,
Christian liberty, and action in the world. Arguments over servitude and op­
pressive lordship became increasingly general-focusing on whether such
practices were in harmony with God's purpose-rather than oriented around
custom and precedent.127
On the other hand, the justifications for revolt and the self-awareness of
the peasants were not completely dependent on the Reformation. The scale
of the Peasants' War of 1525 may be due as much to the advances in inexpen-
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 285
sive printing and the proliferation of pamphlets (Flugschriften) as to the Re­
formation, although the stimulus to reading and disputation can hardly be
separated from the impetus given by the religious upheaval itsel£ 128 The lan­
guage of revolt and the context of its demands remained oriented toward the
Gemeinde even as insurrection became generalized throughout territories be­
yond individual lordships.129
Above all, there is a theological, moral, and legal background to the peas­
ants' demands in 1525 that antedates the Reformation. Peter Bierbrauer has
argued that the Reformation did not by itself inspire a Godly Law peasant ar­
gument in contrast to earlier Old Law local challenges.130 The real distinction
was between two types of Christian natural law: the relative variety, modifi­
able and hence capable of legitimating servitude, and the absolute variety, un­
changeable and thus permanently prohibitive of arbitrary lordship and the
holding of Christians as serfs. Controversies over how much divine and nat­
ural law might be modified by circumstance, the Fall, human necessity, and
sin antedated the Reformation, appearing, as mentioned previously, in the
German law books of the thirteenth century (notably, Sachsenspiegel and
Schwabenspiegel ), Wyclif, the Reformatio Sigismundi, Taborite doctrines, the
pamphlet by the so-called Upper Rhine Revolutionary, and Erasmus.
The third of the Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants denounces serf-
dom in similar terms:
Third, it has until now been the custom for the lords to own us as their prop­
erty. This is deplorable, for Christ redeemed us and bought us all with his pre­
cious blood, the lowliest shepherd as well as the greatest lord, with no excep­
tions. Thus the Bible proves that we are free and want to be free. 131
The text is accompanied by marginal citations to the Bible (Isaiah 53:1; 1
Peter 1; 1 Corinthians 7; Romans 13; Wisdom 6; 1 Peter 2). But as Walter
Mliller has suggested, the language invoking Christ's sufferings that pur­
chased human freedom is more closely derived from the German law books,
along with the Reformatio Sigismundi and Erasmus.132 Bierbrauer points to
the Schwabenspiegel as especially influential, not only because it was more
widely circulated and accessible in south Germany than the Sachsenspiegel,
Reformatio Sigismundi or Erasmus, but because of its specific formulations.
Comparing the south-German lawbook to the articles of the peasants of
Apfingen (part of the Baltringen group, dating from February of 1525) and
the Twelve Articles, Bierbrauer notes two key reworked Schwabenspiegel pas­
sages: first, nowhere in Scripture does it say that one man can own another;
second, God created man after His image and saved him with His sufferings.
In addition, the Apfingen demands repeat the context for the passages in the
 T he Revolt Against Servitude 286
Schwabenspiegel (and its source, the Sachsenspiegel): render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's (Mark 12:17). 133
In the Twelve Articles and the complaints of the .Apfingen Gemeinde we
see the reappearance of venerable themes in discourse about equality in servi­
tude, but now in a more urgent key. Without in any way minimizing specific
socioeconomic pressures or the ideological impact of the Reformation, it can
be argued that medieval concepts of justice played a role in the German Peas­
ants' War, as in those large-scale insurrections that preceded it. Such notions
as the ultimate equality of humanity, Christ's sacrifice to release humanity
from bondage, the obligation placed upon all humanity to labor, and the mu­
tuality of social orders could be brought from the realm of speculation and
made to serve revolutionary aims that did not depend entirely on a radically
new way of looking at the world. In this sense Luther was correct, not that
the peasants ignorantly mistook his teachings concerning Christian liberty,
but that they applied them in a more immediate way, along with the disquisi­
tions of others who commented on the breakdown of mutuality and the dif­
ficulty of explaining the servitude of Christians.
Conclusion
In his study of injustice, Barrington Moore devotes a chapter to "the rejection
of suffering and oppression," asking at what point ideas of mutuality and dig­
nified suffering brealc down and become transformed into direct challenges
to authority. 134 Rebellion springs not only from specific economic pressures
but from a cultural change: a change in which a social environment is no
longer talcen for granted but rather perceived as intolerable. This change is re­
lated to delegitimation, the point at which authority is no longer perceived as
sanctioned by some higher or impersonal law. We have found this to be im­
plicit in the Sachsenspiegel's dismissal of rationales for serfdom on the basis of
biblical authority in favor of a stark, demystified statement that serfdom
comes about from willful human wickedness. This argument, denouncing as
human invention what had previously been regarded as divinely ordained in­
justice, appears repeatedly in peasant justifications for revolt.
I do not of course mean to suggest that mutuality among the orders was
suddenly discovered no longer to work in the fourteenth century. One can as­
sume that peasants themselves realized this rather early on, and certainly the
failure of the Three Orders model elicited theological lament almost from the
moment of the model's post-Carolingian invention. The change in the four­
teenth century did not, therefore, consist in the sudden collapse of a univer­
sally accepted justification but in the confluence of long-term develop-
Peasant Rebellions ofthe Late Middle Ages 287
ments-perceived oppression, opportunity, and the conceptual means of
resistance.
Perceived oppression in the late Middle Ages had much to do with the
demographic collapse and consequent labor shortage following the Black
Death of the mid�fourteenth century. While one cannot ultimately cite the
Black Death as a cause for everything that took place as late as 1525, the crisis
of the landlords and their efforts to recoup by tightening the conditions of
tenure, including the reimposition of servitude, form the background to a
perception of injustice. Even without an ideology of supply and demand,
peasants could expect better bargains for their labor but instead saw the
power of the aristocracy and the state mobilized to extract more from them
to make up for the decline of prices, the devaluation of land, and the shortage
of labor.
The fourteenth to early sixteenth centuries afforded a number of oppor­
tunities for rebellion. In all the cases examined above, internal crises within
the governing order opened practical as well as ideological doors to peasants.
The unpopularity of the poll tax and parliamentary investigations of the cor­
rupt administration of John of Gaunt affected the development of events in
England in 1381, just as dynastic and factional disputes would alter the course
of events in Catalonia a century later. The Reformation not only divided Ger­
man authorities internally but provided powerful images of peasant right­
eousness and exaltation of divine law that encouraged a powerful peasant
movement.
The conceptual means of resistance developed not only from the under­
mining of authority but also from what Moore refers to as "the creation of
standards of condemnation for explaining and judging current sufferings,"
and "a new diagnosis and remedy for existing forms of suffering." 135 That the
diagnosis did not need to be completely new is essentially what I have been
arguing. In classic models of peasant insurrection, including Moore's, there is
little that stands between meek acceptance of a dominant ideology and revo­
lutionary activity born of a sudden collapse of that ideology's inevitability
and legitimacy. Uprisings need not be viewed as the spasmodic frenzy of an
essentially subjugated population, or as an outburst of apocalyptic irrational­
ity. They can be seen instead as more planned, opportunistic, and even opti­
mistic (if in most instances wrongly so) events. Peasant revolts were accom­
panied by a traditional discourse of indignation and resentment; they did not
require the external stimulus of a new ideology, be it Godly Law, a secular
new order, or chiliastic expectation.
The origins of rebellion therefore do not lie in a sudden shift from accep­
tance of hierarchical legitimacy to revolutionary sentiment. Rather, the roots
 The Revolt Against Servitude 288

of revolt may be found in a more continuous change from everyday evasion

to public challenge. The standards of condemnation are key aspects of the
construction of a revolt, but those standards develop not from religious up­
heaval, nor from the export of subversive ideologies from the towns, nor even
from an internal collapse of the state, but from a process of ideological ap­ Conclusion
propriation and reorientation toward immediate practical application.
Not every peasant war involved the same set of justifications for rebellion. Harmony and Dissonance
In England the premise of original equality provided a way to attack the
servile condition of peasants and what was regarded as the unjust lordship
that it made possible. In Catalonia propeasant figures argued that servitude
violated divine and natural law, in at least one case using the words of Greg­
ory the Great's well-known passage on Christ's universally liberating sacrifice.
In Hungary the justification for revolt was linked to the nobles' betrayal of
Favorable and unfavorable depictions of the peasant coexisted and interlaced
mutuality and functional orders. In Germany both equality at Creation and
in the period between the eleventh century and the German Peasants' War of
the meaning of Christ's sacrifice were deployed.
1525. Although contempt was the dominant position of elite observers with
In all these wars, as well as in smaller conflicts, servile status was either
regard t? rural labor, the dependence of knights and clerics on the peasantry
among the direct causes in the eyes of chroniclers and the peasants them­
f?r survi;al �as usuall� at least grudgingly acknowledged. Beyond such prac­
selves, or provided the point of argumentation against more concrete condi­
tical realization, the elite expressed an uneasy awareness that by the very fact
tions of lordship perceived as unjust: restrictions on common lands, the im­
of their despised lowliness, peasants were advantageously placed in the sight
position of taxes, and attempts to reimpose obligations that had fallen into
of God.
disuse, such as residence requirements or death duties. Servitude was the fo­
cus of material and symbolic conflict over human dignity. �ome_ �f the apparent con_trast among images comes from the differing
pre�ispo�ltl?ns of genres (satlre versus sermon, for example), but imagery
In attacking servitude, peasants made use of a vocabulary comprehensi­
vanes within g�nres as well. Thus while fabliaux conventionally depicted
ble to their masters. W hat they said was not unthinkable across the divide of
peasants as stupid, filthy, and gullible, within the fabliau's structure and in ac­
class or order and did not derive entirely from an idiosyncratic, peasant way
cord with its purpose as entertainment, it was possible to conceive of a clever
of reasoning about the world.
and resourceful peasant, one who still fit into an overall image of lowliness
that made such nimble inventiveness necessary.
Sermons also simultaneously lauded and blamed rustics. Sermons in­
tended for rural audiences preached acceptance of oppression and praised
t?ose who e�dured their lot patiently while condemning those who ques­
tl?ned t�e will of G�d. Here positive and negative images were compatible,
differentiated accordmg to whether or not peasants recognized their situation
as a spiritual test with deferred benefits. Thus within a particular genre, multi­
ple notions of peasant humanity, savagery, abjectness, and sanctity intersected.
The corpus of peasant representations cannot be reduced to a general
statement about "the medieval peasant in the eyes of elite observers." Texts
about rustics harbor an indeterminacy. 1 Rather than aiming for a synthesis
that obscures the polyphony of this discourse, we should regard these me­
dieval voices as intelligible but not united. Literary texts and others not pur-
 Conclusion 290 Conclusion 291

porting to be sociologically descriptive have to be related to a social co ntext
without being squeezed into a banal center. Texts that in themselves frustrate
interpretation or o ffer apparent cont radictions become more coheren t when
examined a long with other works, even those fr om different genres. Th at
such an approach is appropriate and feasible can be seen in a post-medieval
case of compar ably various figuration: images of the nineteenth-century
Russian peasant included the simple pious representative of the nation's soul,
the debased ignorant rustic, and the grasping kulak. These were different but
not incompatible responses to emancipation and a rediscovery of rural life.2
ten stubborn a nd resistant. Were it not that their lords tr eat them firmly,
many would gl adly serve th e devil.7
He rides through the benighted village, where peasants are lying about
idly on their s tomachs, doing nothing much, "as is their custom." The
women are picking lice out of the hair of their men, "searching like animals." 8
Hugo engages in a discussion with the drunken and ignorant villagers in re­
sponse to their challenge, "How does it come about th at you lords are so
much better off than us poor peasan ts? Are some people bondsmen while
others are free?" The story of Ham's transgression c onvinces the rustics th at

Even within the same author or work, a range of opinions can be seen to their lack of freedom h as a r eason, th at they are d eservedly cursed. Hugo then

fit together, not harmoniously or even dialec tically but crudely, inadver ten tly, h as himself assuring his audience that freedom is not so very advantageous
a llowing space s for dissent, appr opriation, co ntes tation. The did actic poet and th at they are neares t to Go d's car e. E ar thly freed om doe s not las t very

Hugo von Trimberg is an example of a medieval writer who incorporated a long, and "you poor people" will en ter heaven more easily th an th ose wh o
number of different ideas about the nature o f peasa nts without either bla­ oversee their labor.9
tantly con t ra dicting himself or resolving them oversimply. His Der Renner Not only are the peasan ts unfree by divin e decree, but their essential na­
stands as a pro lix summation of conventional ideas of human sinfulness in re­ ture h as been debased nearly to the level of brute animals. Never theless, they

lation to the estates o f society around 1300, shortly before the conflicts of the are beloved of G od, if only they accept their pl ace. Hugo now m akes it clear

four teenth century moved favor able and unfavorable representations of peas- that he is chiefly anxious ov er the possibility of a blurring of boundaries be­

an ts fur ther apart.

tween peasants and knights. In a series of Aesopian animal stories, Hugo
ose demonstrates the folly of peasants seeking to rise above their station.10
Throughout the poem Hugo laments the mistreatment of rustics, wh
Their tyr nnical m as­ The poem thus touches many of the topics we h ave discussed: the lazi­
meager resources are extor ted from them by violence. a

ar e acclaimed as m en f h n or. ness and comical ignorance of peasants, their childish or animal nature, their
ters boas t o pe nly of v arious evil d eeds yet
o o
all, d oes merited subordination, but also their unjust oppression, their closeness to
Lords who coerce the poor are worse than the devil, for Satan, after
y d . In p ss g c nnecti ng God. These positions come together in a historical understanding of human
not enlist the unwilling in his service as the o
o 3 a a a e
rks th t even sinfulness th at explains both the wickedness of lords, which is the leg acy of
Christian/pagan and human/animal distinctions, Hug o rem a a a
icip ­ Adam's fall, and the debased lot of the peasa nts, resulting from Ham's mis­
"wild heathen'' would pity a dog so mist reated as are the peasants. An
t at
wicked deeds. Sin, nevertheless, h as a limited dominion and is absorbed into the
ing the Reformatio Sigismundi, he recommends that preachers t arget
The Jews were ch s ised in economy of salvation. Suffering is not in vain, nor will the oppressors escape
nobles r ather than non-Christians for conversion. a t
f Chris tians punishment. With regard to the peasan ts, the variety of their por trayal is ex­
Leviticus for mere minor transgr essions, yet the greater iniquity o
4 th at plicable by the movemen t of sacred history. They were to be understood as
goes unpunished, at least here on earth. Hugo is co nfident, however,
n in he next life, where the n bles accursed in the past, oppressed in the present, and blessed in the future.
wicked ness will receive its just retributio t o

enter he ven, bu they Hugo's was neither an unusually comprehensive nor an original view. He
will assuredly burn. The poor will find it easier t o a t
endure h arks back to Ho norius Augustodunensis, who also made Ham responsible
must b e patient in this life. He who wishes for heavenly rich es must
for the debased condition of peasants but neverthel ess considered th em more
earthly misery.5
t pas- likely t o be rewarded in the next life.11 We can paraphrase the argumen t in
Hugo's protests of nobles' depredations are offset by a more succmc
nd piety. As dis­ terms of themes traced in the preceding chapters: peasan ts are of a lower or­
sage in which he moves between images of debasemen t a
o describes a (prob bly) der of humanity, base and uncouth in their ch aracter and behavior. All hu­
cussed above in connec tio n with N oah's curse, Hug
a

idl rustics .6 He intr o duces the s tory o f manity derives from Adam and Eve, but peasants are subordinated to their
imaginary encounter with boorish, e
are of- bet ters by reason of Noah's curse. Only stric t control by their l ords preven ts
his conversation with the villagers with a flat declaration that peasants
 Conclusion 292
their base nature from leading them into further mischief. Yet even if their
oppression is part of God's will, it is not in itself just. The nobles live off their
the rustics' labor and rob them, treating them disgracefully. The peasants are
ennobled through their suffering, which, if accepted meekly, will earn them a
heavenly crown, for simple and unlearned as they are, they merit God's par­
ticular care.
As Hugo and other didactic writers would emphasize and bewail, the fact
that peasants have built-in spiritual advantages does not mean that they real­
ize this potentiality. Unfortunately, peasants tend to be ungrateful and disobe­
dient, defying the order of the world rather than obeying God and fulfilling
His ordinances. Their singular favor in God's eyes tends to remain theoretical.
Certain arguments are missing from Hugo. He evinces little concern for
mutuality among the orders of society, for example. But a harmonious (if
multifaceted) image of peasant subordination is still assumed in this poem.
The villagers accept with pathetic credulity what Hugo tells them. Later in
the fourteenth century and throughout the fifteenth, the image of the pious
rustic would be completely separate from that of the savage or ludicrous sub­
human, but here in Hugo von Trimberg they are still compatible.
Changes After I348
The Black Death of 1348 and 1349 was an event of such obvious magnitude
that historians tend to ascribe everything that happened for over a century af­
terward to its influence. One should not simply assume that because trau­
matic events occurred after the Black Death, they were necessarily caused by
it (post hoc ergo propter hoc). This is especially the case with the peasant rebel­
lions examined in the last chapter. Whatever degree of significance we ascribe
to the epidemic or its repeated visitations, the years between 1350 and 1525
witnessed not only a spate of uprisings but also a new sharpness and urgency
in discourse about the peasantry. The Black Death may not have "caused" the
insurrections directly, but it did usher in an age of heightened social conflict.
Holding the range of attitudes described above became less feasible. After
1350 the peasants tended to be depicted either as sanctified oras bestial; as un­
justly oppressed or as amenable only to coercion (or even as useless). It is as if
the links among a variety of conventional views of the peasantry had been
broken and the pieces reconstituted separately. We have seen the evolution of
Neidhart from comical victim to the vengeful enemy of increasingly boorish
peasants, culminating in the Neidhart Fuchs cycle of the fifteenth century.
Attitudes of total hostility toward rustics were common in fifteenth-century
Germany, such as are expressed in the poem "Edelmannslehre," which rec-
Conclusion 293
ommends that knights pillage and rob peasants, and when they have no
money left, slit their throats. 12 Peasants are either no longer useful at all, or
useful only if toil can be extracted from them through harsh supervision.
They must be "bled" or "trimmed like a willow tree" in order to produce any­
thing.13
Felix Hemmerli's De nobilitate et rusticitate dialogus, written in the
mid-fifteenth century, presents a conversation with peasants that contrasts
usefully with that imagined by Hugo von Trimberg. Hemmerli may also have
invented this considerably more hostile dialogue, but it has a certain
verisimilitude. Interrupting the tirade of a knight against the rustics, Hem­
merli suddenly addresses the reader with "here is a true story."14 While travel­
ing in Baden, Hemmerli dined at an inn where he was forced to listen to a
group of peasants "behaving in their usual demented fashion" and roundly
denouncing clerical immorality. Prudently waiting until he finished his meal,
Hemmerli addressed the hostile audience. The previous day during his travels
up the Rhine, he stated, he had seen 24 corpses of thieves who had been bro­
ken on the wheel. Not one was a noble or cleric. They were all rustics (and,
moreover, from the same village), but if even one had been a member of an­
other estate, his listeners would never cease to attack the wickedness of the
upper classes. The few lecherous clerics that the rustics had been castigating
were merely following natural human instincts, but the thievery of peasants is
both routine and a flagrant violation of nature. At this point, with the peas­
ants increasingly furious, Hemmerli advised his curate that perhaps it was
time to depart.15
At the same time, denunciations of seigneurial oppression become both
more strident and less likely to be offset by counsels to rustic passivity. In this
period peasant grievances themselves became at least dimly visible, and not
surprisingly, they were less focused on the afterlife than on more immediate
justice. Elite denunciations of servitude, such as those found in the Reforma­
tio Sigismundi or Erasmus's Institutio principis Christiani, pointed to an unal­
terable natural law that servitude violated, a transgression not to be excused
by appeals to either mutuality or a heavenly reward. 16 Also in the late fif­
teenth and early sixteenth centuries the image of the peasant as pious exem­
plar gained particular prominence in Germany. 1 7 At the same time that the
Carnival plays, Neidhart poems, and denunciations of peasant wickedness
reached the height of their popularity, images such as those of the pious
Karsthans or of the Christ-like plowman also took hold. There were certain
curious crossovers: Karsthans began as an antipeasant caricature but became
an evangelical emblem.18 Certain authors, such as Hans Rosenpliit, wrote
both in praise and in mockery of peasants.19
 Conclusion 294
What seems to have fallen into abeyance or at least obscurity in the fif­
teenth century were the forms that mediated apparently contradictory themes
referring to the pe asantry. These include the ide a of mutuality, the distinction
between injustice in this life and a better afterlife, the contrast between peas­
ants' supposed base behavior and God's special care for them, and in general a
less optimistic notion of G od's immedi ate governance o f the temporal world.
Ide as of mutuality did not drop completely from view. The Three Orders
would enjoy a long career and a notable revival in the seventeenth century.20
What seems to have diminished in the late Middle Ages is confidence in hi­
erarchical stability and the sense of orderly historical change according to di­
vine plan. As long as one could maintain that peasants received something in
return for their labor, or that their subordination was in their own interest,
even bondage could be excused. Insofar as the theory of mutuality was un­
dermined almo st from its inception by a manifestly exploi tative reality, a
p romise of eternal and underlying justice rendered its shor tcomings transi­
tory, hence explicable. Mutuality and the justice of the afterlife were thus re­
lated sequentially as explanations of contrasting worldly fortunes. Mutuality
served as an initial response to inequality, offering a system that was cer tainly
hierarchical but that benefited the lowly whose labor services were recom­
pensed by prayer and protection. To the degree that this exchange did not
work fairly (and I have argued that its flaws were always apparent- that the
Three Orders was never a hypnotically compelling fantasy), the recompense
(and punishment) would take place in eternity. Mutuality was a contract be­
tween the pe asants and God more than between the orders themselves. Ful­
filling their duty of work, even though their masters failed to live up to their
obligations, the peasants would receive eternal rewards for their labor.
Such explanations for lowliness and oppression served to justify the soci al
order while admitting its defects. They were less confidently asserted after
1350 not only because of the long-recognized shortcomings of the theory of
mutuality but because of a change in the timing of the putative recompense.
Pe asant grievances demand conformity with divine and natural law in the
present, temporal world. In the Reformatio Sigismundi, as in the doubts ex­
pressed by Queen M aria de Luna of Aragon, the moral danger of unjust
servitude was not ameliorated by positing a he avenly future when it was to be
made right.
The emphasis in both elite and popular discourse on work and the spiri­
tual capital it produces is worth noting in connection with the structuring of
peasant demands. It is not so much that work became prized in the Weberian
sense, where before it had been despised. Labor had long been credited, if
grudgingly, with a certain merit, as expiation and as sacrifice for others, con-
Conclusion 295
forming to God's purpose and assured of he avenly recompense; but it would
also retain a st�gm a ?f punishment, continuing to symbolize the Fall by rea­
_
son of _ its physical difficulty and l ack of digni ty. In the l ate Middle Ages the
�ent of wor!< took on an added luster and urgency. The pe asants in England
_
111 1381 �n� 111 Ge�many 111 1525 used the rhetoric of mutu ality not only to
protest its 111effect1veness but to assert the spiritual value of l abor. The moral
superi ority of the pe asants to thei r masters was to be recognized, not in a
he avenly fu ture but immedi ately. This was not a chili astic expectation of
God's justice appe aring as an end to histoiy, but a reordering of lordship and
tenancy to end the arbitr ary extraction of we alth from the rur al laborers and
to restore so me rel ationship between labor and reward. Spiritu al rewards were
�ot rejected; this was not a dispute over the consolations of religion. Rather,
111 a pattern �f appropri �:ion typical for the period, the widely acknowledged
spm _ _ tual ment of the tod111g pe asantry was turned to justify rebellion.
As argued previously, the late-medieval pe asant movements did not so
much invent a new political or moral vocabulary as use already existing, com­
monplace ideas, such as the dignity of labor or the closeness of rustics to God,
in a more immedi ate fashion. Ide as of difference, justice, and recompense
were medieval representations of a dynamic soci al world, not merely after­
the-fact rationales or hegemonic constructs. They were, in Roger Chartier's
words, "constituents of soci al re ality"; not ex ternal ideologies but part of the
elaboration of soci al re ality itself.21
Hegemony or Appropriation
The belief th at different representations of peasants constitute soci al me an­
ing justifies the forgoing el aboration of images separately as parts of a large
vocabulary. I a� no ':he_ re ne�r arguing that texts are in themselves the only
.
form of socially intelligible action. They do influence historical events and the
mentalit�es of h!storical actors, howe:er. More than that, as opposed merely
_ _
to affect111g soci al st atus, op1111ons, images, and rhetoric al formul ations in
some sense produce it through law, justifications, confidence in the way things
22
are org anized, or resist ance to unfavor able change.
The histori an Helmut Smith has pointed to a strong and a we ak manner
of maintaining what he calls "the productive quality of discourse." I would
adhere to the we ak side of this par ticular estim ate of the signific ance of lan­
guage; that !s, I believe th at texts do have some influence on soci al re ality
beyond the 111fluence that they exert simply as evidence or documentation.
A strong version would see the text as the only re ality, as completely self­
referenti al, wi th no world "out there" to which it pertains.23
 Conclusion 296
One could maintain the strong opinion were one convinced that reality
revealed itself only through hopelessly distorted texts, or that any apparent in­
telligibility was imposed on it by the interests of the powerful for whom most
of these texts were elaborated.However contingent our understanding of the
past, its material remains (documentary and archaeological) are valid within
limits. Modesty and tentativeness are preferable to wholesale rejection of the
factual basis of historical records, of their reliability for reconstructing a van­
ished world external to its textual remains.
I have tried, in Michel de Certeau's words, to "circulate around acquired
rationalizations"-to examine medieval explanations for subordination and
difference across the grain of likeness (especially religious likeness) and ulti­
mate equality.24 I have done so with a belief that these images can be under­
stood but also that they fit together to form an idea system, one whose very
complexity and even awkwardness gave it malleability.
To what degree could medieval peasants contest the terms that described
who they were and that justified their subordination? This question comes up
against two tendencies of contemporary thought about peasants and other
subaltern groups, one emphasizing their agency, the other insisting on the
power of hegemonic discourses.
At one time the peasant was regarded as helpless, passive, and outside the
movement of modernity (whether that modernity was represented in Marxist
or capitalist terms).25 This pessimistic assessment has been superseded by a
positive evaluation of peasant culture and peasant agency. Rather than being
seen as affected by but not creative of history, peasants now tend to be re­
garded by both historians and anthropologists as possessing a coherent, well­
articulated worldview, as having rational goals and even a certain confidence
in their abilities to influence their circumstances. This perspective has been
especially noteworthy in consideration of the ability of peasants to resist land­
lords and state powers that, from the official records, seem to dominate them.
Everyday forms of peasant resistance provide a less visible but, it is thought,
more effective means of assertion and contestation than insurrections. Eva­
sion, foot-dragging, and subversion of plans dictated from above resourcefully
deflect the plans of those supposedly in charge, postponing or going around
the forces of enterprise, "rationalization," or technological change that would
displace or further subordinate them.26 For the Middle Ages, the fact that
peasants were effectively in charge of specific pieces of land-that the lords'
supervision could not be consistent or close, given the fragmented nature of
lordship and communication-has led some observers to consider peasants
sufficiently powerful to render the seigneurial system of their exploitation
marginal or irrelevant.
Conclusion 297
Attention to agency also includes a more favorable estimation of the peas­
ants' ability to understand their situation and to create a specifically peasant
discourse and action.27 This ability can take the form of resistance, direct or
indirect, but is more a somewhat hidden form of knowledge than a strategy.
In his study of Tanganyika/Tanzania in the last decades of British rule,
Steven Feierman points out that the myth of the intellectually underdevel­
oped peasant survives because of the failure of most peasant movements, but
these failures are due more to circumstance than to some innate weakness of
conception or structure.28
Such views conflict with the opinion that the subordinate classes in gen­
eral have been slow to act by reason of the power of the dominant discourse,
a conceptual and intellectual construct in certain respects backed up by phys­
ical force, but so successful as to have created a form of false consciousness
whereby notions of hierarchy, deference, and legitimacy of exploitation are
accepted by their victims even without visible coercion. Antonio Gramsci's
concept of hegemony has been adopted and modified by observers of modern
state and class power. Here too, however, "strong" and "weak" versions have
been enunciated (James Scott refers to them respectively as "thick" and
"thin"). In the strong conception of hegemony and false consciousness, the
elite has a grip of such strength (through institutions such as educational and
religious systems) that the subordinate fully, even enthusiastically accept the
way things are. In the weak conception, subordinate people take a fatalistic
or "realistic" view of the situation as somehow natural. In this sense, accord­
ing to Bourdieu, "every established order tends to produce ... the naturaliza­
tion of its own arbitrariness."29
James Scott has shown, to my mind convincingly, the flaws of both the
strong and weak versions of hegemony and false consciousness by emphasiz­
ing the need of dominant elites to devise a rationale for the social order, their
vulnerability to having these rationales used against them, and the sheer
quantity and frequency of resistance.With regard to this last point, Scott re­
marks that it is the exaggeration of their own power by subordinate groups
that needs explaining-their tendency to overestimate their opportunities­
not their passivity or a perceived irresistibility of power.30
Our perception of hegemony, in Scott's opinion, stems in large measure
from the nature of our sources, which obviously foreground what he calls "the
official transcript" rather than what the mass of people really thought.It also
comes from the desire to find "real revolutionaries" with an ideology that
breaks completely from that of the dominant classes rather than the cautious,
even reactionary formulations of those who remonstrate in the name of es­
tablished values ("traditionalist" or "primitive" rebels). Scott takes issue with
 Conclusion 298
scholars, such as Barrington Moore, who consider grievances over failure to
abide by a social contract inferior to those relatively rare contestations of the
right of an elite class to exist.31 The version of false consciousness expressed
in this view is also disputed by Scott on the grounds that protests based on
agreed-upon principles of rule are more plausible and compelling than in­
venting entirely new concepts of society. The public presentation of claims
may not conform to the deepest preferences of the rebels, but one should not
mistake prudence for ethical submission. Seemingly naive beliefs, such as the
Russian peasants' expressed faith in a tsar who would deliver them from op­
pression, have been shown to be effective, adaptable ways of legitimating re­
sistance to authority as it was actually constituted by referring to a seemingly
conservative ideal.32 In the Middle Ages, attacks on Jews or lepers and the of­
ten related phenomenon of popular crusades, such as the Pastoureaux ofi320,
functioned as disguised attacks on the crown. Far from being spontaneous
outbreaks manifesting a growing irrationality, the Shepherds' Crusade and
similar movements deployed an exaggerated and violent piety to further spe­
cific political and fiscal rebellion.33
Claims by rulers that the idea system justifying their position serves the
interests of all can ultimately legitimate resistance when the elites fail to live
up to those claims. 34 In the context of medieval and early-modern insurrec­
tions, an "Old Law" argument could serve to inspire thoroughly radical forms
of protest. As Scott remarks, "Whether he believes the rules or not, only a
fool would fail to appreciate the possible benefits of deploying such readily
available ideological resources."35 Peasants need not have bought into the
dominant rationales in order to make use of them. As argued in the previous
chapter, medieval peasant rebellions did make use of the "ideological re­
sources" at hand. The available discourse in this case afforded opportunities
for both internal justifications by peasants themselves and plausible external
structuring of grievances.
Of course not all opposition leads to defiance. Such low-key expressions
of dissatisfaction as gossip, grumbling, and satire can perfectly well accord
with deference and even bolster the terms of the dominant discourse.36 More
explicitly supportive of that discourse are what Christine Pelzer White refers
to as "everyday forms of peasant collaboration."37 One should not depict all
forms of uncooperative or antisocial behavior as "resistance," or romanticize
resistance, or minimize the internal dissensions within communities.38 Peas­
ants did not form a unified force nor define themselves in terms of a binary
opposition between themselves and their lords.
Neither, on the other hand, is there an obvious line between complicitous
and subversive behavior: one can easily lead to the other as, for example, in
Conclusion 299
forms of local gossip.39 Similarly, there is no fixed boundary between tradi­
tionalist and radical peasant movements. Irwin Scheiner identified some 2,809
peasant rebellions that occurred during the Tokugawa period of Japanese his­
tory (along with about 1,000 "riots"), ranging from petitions, to small-scale
symbolic violence, to "world renewal rebellions." Although the differences of
scale, anger, and ambition among these rebellious activities are obvious,
Scheiner found no line between traditional versus "truly radical" uprisings.40
If medieval peasants (and peasants generally) were less passive and accept­
ing than once thought, neither was the elite so tenacious or confident at all
times in defense of a supposedly hegemonic vision. This is not to argue that
they were somehow "tolerant" or progressive, but to assert that their discourse
about peasants contains fissures, doubts, and points that could be appropri­
ated by their subordinates. Elite and popular worlds were not closed off from
each other. Ideas could be regarded differentially-for example, opinions dif­
fered on whether the original equality of humanity remained valid in the pre­
sent-but the dialogue about such issues was mutually comprehensible. No
clear frontier between learned and popular culture existed, if only because
there were intermediate levels of discourse (vernacular sermons, for example).
Moreover, positing such a frontier accepts too readily the statements (such as
those of the clergy) of the debased condition of rural piety and practice.
Roger Chartier has effectively criticized the overall notion of a completely
separate popular culture, emphasizing the ability of popular movements to
shape according to different goals and strategies the ideas and justifications of
the elite.41 For the Middle Ages, such interchange has been accepted by Le
Goff and rather more enthusiastically defended by Gurevich.42 In a study of
late-medieval Soria in Old Castile, John Edwards concludes that opinions
and ideas flowed between learned and uneducated, and did so in both direc­
tions.43 In Metz, by the year 1200, pious lay men and women had French
translations of numerous books, including Gregory's Moralia in job. 44 It was
possible for information about ideas and texts to be widespread without indi­
vidual knowledge or practice or reading. 45
Peasants were therefore neither cowed nor entirely unaware of their situa­
tion. It remains questionable, however, to what extent their agenda can be re­
covered, especially for the distant past. My primary interest in this study has
been to look at how peasants were regarded by the articulate classes above
them. Nevertheless, I have also tried to show connections between the images
applied to them and their own conceptions and movements, thus bringing
up the question of how the opinions and voice of such people can be recov­
ered without gross distortion, sentimentality, or false claim to speak for the
silenced.46
 Conclusion 300
A goal of this book has been to show that there was a certain structure of
elite thought about the peasant. This amounted to a discourse across genre, a
"register" in Zumthor's terms, a "polyhedron of intelligibility" in Foucault's
locution, something with many facets but with an internal consistency. 47 At
the same time, such consistency was achieved at the cost of recognizing cer­
tain tensions: between the peasant as subhuman and the peasant as God's
special concern; between original equality and present difference; between
mutuality as an ideal and its failure in practice. These tensions amounted to
something more than occasional or involuntary admissions that an otherwise
hegemonic representation might be flawed. Medieval observers saw that there
were problems with regarding the peasants as removed from common hu­
manity, and with reconciling the New Testament to the reality of social hier­
archy. They traced out paradoxes of equality and subordination, of punish­
ment and divine favor. Internal tensions increased in the late Middle Ages,
eventually provoking a division between the peasant regarded as licitly subju­
gated and the peasant as spiritually elevated by suffering. But at no time were
elites completely unified, confident, or single-minded in asserting the natu­
ralness or unquestionable moral validity of those aspects of the social struc­
ture, especially servitude, that seemed to contradict minimal notions of
Christian equality.
I have also suggested, without minimizing the autonomous thought pat­
terns of medieval peasants, that they and their spokesmen could appropriate
to their own ends commonplace statements and shared assumptions about
God in relation to society, statements and assumptions that in the dominant
discourse were used to justify domination based on a supposed mutuality.
The Peasant as "Other"
Ultimately the existence of a complex system of representation may be said to
degrade the peasants, if for no other reason than that they did not occupy the
subject position in such discourse: peasants were perceived as objects of their
masters' discourses, as "other" in relation to the powerful, not as autonomous
actors. But I would question the reach and utility of the term "Other" in this
context. The Middle Ages is hardly known for its tolerance, and indeed a con­
siderable amount of recent research has rediscovered just how many groups­
Jews, lepers, homosexuals, Muslims, "monstrous races"-were demonized. 48
In keeping with a change in how the modern era is viewed (with less confi­
dence in its supposed inclusiveness and in the march of progress), the me­
dieval is now often seen as the �rigin of a "bad modern," including European
expansionism, repression of difference, and a colonial or enslaving mentality. 49
Conclusion 301
Occasionally, an open, pluralist "good" Middle Ages (with the twelfth century
as its high point) is contrasted with a rigid, authoritarian, intolerant scholastic
and late-medieval era, 50
The concept of the Other has been used in the context of sudden discov­
eries of new and troubling worlds. 51 It has had an even more extensive run as
a process ("Othering") by which more or less familiar strangers, the exotic, or
those standing in the way of progress are represented as inferior, primitive,
degenerate, or even alluring. Their otherness is "invented" by being struc­
tured as radically different from an unexamined but anxiously defended "nor­
malcy. "52 The concept has also been applied to representations of sexuality,
race, and gender within cultures and nations. 53 Alterity itself and how it is
presented and shaped are the subjects of a theoretical literature and are espe­
cially prominent in critiques of anthropological objectivity. 54
Several problems stem from too sweeping (or inclusive) an application of
the concept of "the Other" to medieval society. In the first place it becomes a
reified concept in itself, the "fetishization of alterity" that imposes a conve­
nient name on a more complex reality.55 It also tends to reinforce the domi­
nant culture's self-image by referring everything to it by way of comparison.
This monolithic system of reference obscures the relation between different
marginal groups, such as Jews and Muslims under Christian rule in Iberia, re­
ducing them to mere categories within the exercise of state power. 56
A totalizing notion of the Other also fails to discriminate among groups
regarded or constructed as different. This is especially the case in the context
of the Middle Ages, with its panoply of othering discourses. One must dis­
tinguish those "others" completely outside the orbit of everyday medieval Eu­
ropean life: the monstrous races or the dimly perceived inhabitants of India,
Ethiopia, or sub-Saharan Africa. The "monsters" were most obviously an in­
vented other in the purest sense, resulting from acts of the imagination. Peo­
ples more proximate but religiously alien-Jews and Muslims-were re­
garded along different axes depending on whether they lived across a frontier,
appeared powerful and threatening, or were considered subordinated tribu­
taries. Lepers were both more radically different and yet, by virtue of their
origin, similar to those who segregated them.
All of these people could be represented as troubling, subhuman, danger­
ous, if at some level part of a divine plan. Imagined races were related to the
apocalyptic prophecies of the Book of Revelation, or their possible salvation
was taken as evidence of the reach of the Gospel (as in the famous depiction
of the Pentecost on the sculpted tympanum of Vezelay, which shows the
apostles preaching to pygmies, big-eared people, and dog-headed people).
Lepers, too, were objects of both fear and redemptive ambitions. The Jews
 Conclusion 302
Conclusion 303
figured in the divine plan retrospectively but also prospectively, for their con­
the collapse of a peasant society....An ancient peasant France, a France of
version would herald the arrival of the millennium.
bourgs, villages, hamlets, and scattered houses survived more or less un­
W hen considering European peasants and'women, however, we are deal­
changed until at least 1914 and some would say 1945."60 The very identity of
ing with groups so obviously numerous that they could not be literall� mar­
France and its regions is at issue, a nation of 120 cheeses, in De Gaulle's fa­
ginal. Language used to describe other despised peoples could be applied to
mous words. The disappearance of the peasantry is set off against the threat
them (as in the crossover use of Noah's curse, for example), but clearly they
of Americanization or globalization. It has been lamented in the popular
constitute an "Other" very different from distant or religiously different peo­
press, in songs, and throughout the earnest debate that characterizes French
ples.Women and peasants counted at most as "proximate others," not only
public culture.61
because of their physical closeness to those who dominated society but be­
In a world that by and large celebrates technological progress and what
cause of their secular necessity.57 While they were, like Jews and lepers, vaguely
are perceived as improved living standards, the disappearance of the class that
part of some divine unfolding, peasants and women also underpinned society
undergirded European society for its medieval and modern centuries should
in the temporal world in a unique and indispensable way.
provoke ambivalence.The peasant, even in eclipse, represents the human, the
Discourse about peasants and women therefore oscillated violently
natural, the organic nation.
among three poles: unfavorable alterity, similarity, and favorable dissimilarity.
The terms of this constant shifting differed for the two groups: for women,
beauty and defilement, misogyny and adoration, sexuality and virginity; for
peasants (peasant women being subject to all vocabularies), bestiality and
childlike simplicity, stupidity and cleverness, intractability and pliant pa­
tience.The dominant discourse figured both women and peasants, however,
in terms of embodiment and earthiness, as divinely favored, as requiring co­
ercive control, and as paradoxically equal yet subordinate.
The dominant culture of any society, including the medieval, does not
simply classify with confidence or consistency those whom it regards �s dif­
ferent.There are some "differences" that it must deal with.It can do this by a
compulsive proliferation of negative stereotypes.58 In that very proliferation,
however, the internal consistency of vision and purpose is strained, and its
complexity contains within it its own contestation.

Although the peasant has not disappeared from the rural world in the way
that both Marxist and capitalist theories predicted, in Western Europe the
peasantry has become vestigial or nonexistent.This is a relatively recent phe­
nomenon in France, Spain, and Italy.The impact of mechanization, con­
sumer culture, consolidation of holdings, and the decline of protective tariffs
has decimated the rural agricultural population in recent decades. This
process has been felt with a sense of loss, especially in France, where the emp­
tying of the productive countryside, though well under way by the end of the
nineteenth century, accelerated in the 195os.59 Fernand Braudel, at the end of
his final great work, The Identity ofFrance, observed: "To my mind the spec­
tacle that overshadows all others, in the France of the past and even today, is
Reference Matter
 Notes

Introduction
I. La Bruyere, Les caracteres, no. 128 (4) (p. 339): "Certains animaux farouches,
des males et des femelles, repandues par la campagne, noirs, livides et tout brules du
soleil, attaches a la terre qu'ils fouillent et qu'ils remuent avec une opiniatre invinci­
ble; ils ont comme une voix articulee, et quand ils se !event sur leurs pieds, ils mon­
trent une face humaine, et en effet ils sont des hommes."
2. Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli, p. 3.
3. General treatments of the social and economic position of the medieval peas­
antry include Duby, Rural Economy; Rosener, Peasants in the Middle Ages; Genicot,
Rural Communities; and Fossier, Peasant Life.
4. Blankenburg, Der Vilain; Reich, Beitrage zur Kenntnis.
5. Galpin, Cortois and Vilain.
6. Gudde, Social Conflicts.
7. Coulton, Medieval Village.
8. Hiigli, Der deutsche Bauer im Mittelalter, Martini, Das Bauerntum.
9. Heald, "Peasant in Medieval German Literature"; Schuppert, "Der Bauer in
der deutschen Literatur des Spatmittelalters"; Ebner, "Der Bauer." These writers were
primarily concerned with the degree to which literary or historical works give an ac­
curate or "realistic" account of peasant life and material culture.
10. For this, see Jonin, "La revision d'un topos."
II. Louis Althusser's definition, as cited in Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities,
p. 2.
12. Zumthor, Le masque et la lumiere, p. 51.
13. Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, p. II.
14. Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude.
15. I owe this observation to Professor Ihor Sevcenko, of Harvard University,
whose help I gratefully acknowledge.
16. Le Goff, "Les paysans et le monde rural," translated as "Peasants and the
 Notes to Introduction 308
Rural World," inLeGoff, Time, "\¥0rk, and Culture, quotation from p. 88 of the En­
glish version.
17. Greenblatt, "Murdering Peasants," especially pp. II, 21.
18. A curious and rather extensive journal by a Tuscan peasant of the fifteenth
century has survived, but it deals for the most part with financial accounts: La zappa
e la retorica. For this information I am grateful to Paolo Squattriti, of the University
of Michigan, who is preparing an English translation of this work.
19. Schmitt, Holy Greyhound, p. 171.
20. LeGoff, "Le vocabulaire des categories sociales"; Lavilla Martin, La imagen
de! siervo en el pensamiento de San Francisco.
21. Definitions of the contemporary peasantry may be found in Eric Wolf, Peas­
ants, pp. 1-7; and Peasants and Peasant Societies, pp. 14-17 (Shanin's introduction). A
multifaceted meditation on the subject is Shanin, Defining Peasants.
22. On slavery in relation to unfree peasantries, see the collection Serfdom and
Slavery.
23. Maddicott, English Peasantry, p. 68.
24. M. Bloch, Feudal Society, pp. 255-74; Fourquin, Lordship and Feudalism,
pp. 173-83; Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude, pp. 4-18; and Hilton, Decline of
Serfdom.
25. On the Latin terms used in the early Middle Ages, see Kobler,'"Bauer' (agri-
cola, co/onus, rusticus)."
26. Conte, Servi medievali.
27. Stackmann, "Bezeichnungen fur'Bauer,"' especially p. 160.
28. Wenskus, "'Bauer'-Begriff und historischeWirklichkeit."
29. Hilton, Decline ofSerfdom, pp. 15-19. On Anglo-Saxon slavery, see Pelteret,
Slavery in Early Mediaeval England.
30. Batany, "Les pauvres et la pauvrete."
31. LeGoff, Time, "\¥0rk, and Culture, p. 94.
32. Bosl, "Potens undPauper."
33. Ibid., p. 123.
34. LeGoff, "Le vocabulaire des categories sociales," p. rn4.
35. Mollat, Poor in the Middle Ages, pp. 193-293; Geremek, Margins of Society.
36. On the distinction between laboratores, those with no land or less than a full
holding, and masoverii, who could support themselves from their tenements, see
Bois, Crisis ofFeudalism, pp. 179-87; Hilton, "Reasons for Inequality"; andRosener,
Peasants in the Middle Ages, pp. 191-207.
Chapter I
I. "Der Bauernlob" ("Das Gedicht vom ersten Edelmann"), published in two
versions, one in Tettau, "Ober einige bis jetzt unbekannte Erfurter Drucke," pp.
319-25; and one in Weller, "Gedicht vom ersten Edelmann," pp. 231-38. T he passage
below is from Tettau's edition, p. 322:
Notes to Chapter I 309
Wer uns derPauer nit geborn,
wer pawet uns den weitz und das korn,
Und auch dartzu den guten wein,
darbey wir offt gar frolich sein?
2. Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History 2: 52, cited in Constable, Three Studies,
p. 316.
3. T homas ofW imbledon, cited in Aers, Community, Gender, and Individual
Identity, p. 33.
4. Caggese, "La Repubblica di Siena," p. 84: "Ad hoc ut status civium per comita­
tum et comitatinos utilius conserventur, quorum comitatus comitationorum conserva­
tio est augumentatio civitatis cum exinde et victualia proveniat et fertilitas oportuna."
5. Abbo of Fleury, Liber apologeticus, in PL 139: 464: "Primo de virorum ordine,
id est de laicis, dicendum est, quod alii sunt agricolae, alii agonistae, et agricolae qui­
dem insudant agricultorae et diversis artibus in opere rustico, uncle sustentatur totius
Ecclesiae multitudo; agonistae vero, contenti stipendis militiae . . . omni sagacite ex­
pugnant adversarios sanctaeDei Ecclesiae."
6. Mostert, Political Theology ofAbbo ofFleury, pp. 93, rn3; Duby, Three Orders,
p. 90.
7. Duby, Three Orders, p. rn8.
8. Aelfric, Colloquy, p. 39: ''Agricultura, quia arator nos omnes pascit." A discus­
sion of Aelfric's scheme of society is provided in Ruffing, "Labor Structure of Aelfric's
Colloquy," but Ruffing deals more with the monastic understanding of useful occu­
pations than with relations among social orders.
9. Wulfstan, Die '1nstitutes ofPolity, Civil and Ecclesiastical" pp. 55-56.
IO. Aelfric, Colloquy, p. 21. On this passage seePelteret, Slavery in Early Mediae­
val England, pp. 64-66.
II. Aelfric, Letter to Sigeward and Passio Machabeorum, as described in E. Ander­
son, " Social Idealism in Aelfric's Colloquy," p. 157.
12. On the date of the Gesta, see Oexle, "Die'Wirklichkeit' und das 'Wissen,"'
pp. 74-76.
13. Adalbero ofLaon, Poeme au roi Robert. T he Carmen may date from as early as
mm and probably dates from no later than rn31. See Constable, Three Studies, p. 283
n. 130; and Oexle,''Adalbero vonLaon," p. 635.
14. As noted by Oexle, "Le travail au Xle siecle," pp. 53-55. In fact, according to
JacquesLeGoff, the term laboratores at the time of Adalbero meant not just agricul­
tural workers but those at the higher levels of the peasantry who farm a property that
produces a surplus and who are thus productive from the vantage of those who re­
ceive revenues from their profitable labor: Le Goff, Time, Work and Culture, p. 57;
idem, "Le travail dans les systemes de valeur," pp. 16-17.
15. Adalbero ofLaon, Poeme au roi Robert, vv. 290-93 (p. 22):
Nam valet ingenuus sine semis uiuere nullus.
Cum labor occurit sumptus et habere peroptant,
 Notes to Chapter I 310 Notes to Chapter I 3n
Rex et pontifices seruus seruire uidentur. Qui vivez sur nous laboureurs,
Pascitur a seruo dominus quern pascere sperat. Confortez nous d' aucun hon ayde:
Vivre nous fault, c' est le remede.
16. Augustine, De civitate Dei 19.14, cited in Oexle, "Le travail au XIe siecle,"
p. 54. 28. Gower, Vox clamantis, bk. 1, vv. 2093-96 (p. 79):
17. Adalbero ofLaon, Poeme au roi Robert, vv. 286-88 (p. 22).
18. Wernher de Gartenaere, Helmbrecht, vv. 543-60 (pp. 36-38). Sic cum rusticitas fuerat religata cathenis
19. Buch der Rugen, vv. 145r62 (p. 86): Et paciens nostro subiacet illa pede,
Ad iuga hos rediit, que sub aruis semen aratis
Liebiu kint, sit staete vro: Creuit, et a hello rusticus ipse silet.
mit iuwerr reinen arbeit
spist ir alle kristenheit. The translation is Stockton's, in Gower, Major Latin \.Vorks, p. 94.
dar an belibet staet: 29. Oswald von Wolkenstein, Die Lieder, no. n2, vv. 172-74 (p. 276); no. 39, v.
swer iu iht ander raet, 34 (p. 130); no. 44, vv. 45-48 (p. 145), cited in Classen, "Peasant Life and Peasant Re­
der wil iuch verkeren, ality," pp. 86-87.
30. This account is by the fourteenth-century jurist Bertran de Ceva, as repeated
(Dear children, you are by Joan de Socarrats in 1476, edited in Freedman, "Catalan Lawyers," apps. 3 and 4
offortunate rank. With (pp. 313-14); also in Freedman, Church, Law and Society, no. 14. See below, Chapter 5,
your pure work you feed pp. n6-17.
all ofChristendom; thus 31. Monumenta rusticorum in Hungaria rebellium, no. 202, p. 260: "Item quam­
yours is a beloved estate. quam omnes rustici, qui adversus dominos eorum naturales insurrexerunt, tanquam
Whoever tells you other­ proditores capitali pena sint plectendi, ne tamen tot sanguinis efusio adhuc sequatur
wise wishes to deceive et omnis rusticitas, sine qua nobilitas parum valet, deleatur."
you.) 32. Duby, Three Orders; Oexle, "Die funktionale Dreiteilung"; idem, "Deutungs­
20. Hans Rosenplilt, "Der Baum Lob," in Der Bauer im deutschen Liede, pp. schemata"; and Constable, "Orders ofSociety," in his Three Studies, pp. 251-350. Also
109-12; also in Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 217, pp. 549- significant is Niccoli, I sacerdoti, i guerrieri, i contadini.
52. Although primarily concerned with Rosenpliit's epigrammatic poetry, Reichel's 33. Peter the Chanter, De oratione et speciebus illius,, pp. 224-26, cited in Consta­
Der Spruchdichter Hans Rosenplut is the only recently published general work on this ble, Three Studies, p. 319.
writer. 34. These lifestyles and roles are described and related to the three functional so­
21. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 219, p. 555. cial orders in Constable, "Orders ofSociety," in his Three Studies, pp. 251-350.
22. Ibid., no. 177, p. 465. 35. Dumezil, Mythe et epopee; idem, Les Dieux souverains des Indo-Europeens-,
23. Meisterlieder der Kolmarer Handschrifi, song no. 71, vv. 8-10 (BLVS 68, p. Dubuisson, "Le roi indo-europeen' '; Le Goff, "Les trois fonctions indo-europeennes";
378): "den frumen human ich dem priester allezit geliche, / Wan er uns neret vor des and Rouche, "De l'Orient a !'Occident."
hungers freisen / mit sinem pfluog sin arbeit uz der erde guot." 36. In Germany, for example, it is found in the German didactic poets Freidank
24. Historical Poems ofthe XIVth and XVth Centuries, no. 35, pp. 9r98. and Hugo von Trimberg and the sermons attributed to Berthold von Regensburg; see
25. Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger, pp. 88, 9p. Hiigli, Der deutsche Bauer im Mittelalter, pp. 64-65. For the use of the Three Orders
26. Etienne de Fougeres, Le livre des manieres, vv. 693-704 (pp. 84-85). by the laity, especially in the early-modern era, see Niccoli, I sacerdoti, i guerrieri, i
27. Enguerrard de Monstrelet, Chronique, chap. 273 (p. 387): contadini, pp. 35-124.
37. Iogna-Prat, "Le 'bapteme' du schema"; Ortigues, "Haymon d'Auxerre." Duby,
Helas! helas! helas! helas! Three Orders, p. 109, did mention Haimo ofAuxerre, but only as a figure anticipating
Prelats, princes, et hons seigneurs, the "revelation" of the fully developed theory in Adalbero of Laon and Gerard of
Bourgeois, marchans et advocats, Cambrai.
Gens de mestiers grans et mineurs, 38. Oexle, "Deutungsschemata," pp. 94-95.
Gens d' armes, et les trois estats, 39. Duby, Three Orders, p. 177. A similarly reductionist view is found in the
 Notes to Chapter I 312
works of Carozzi, Rouche, and others writing on this subject at the time Duby's
Three Orders appeared (see Oexle, "Deutungsschemata," pp. 76-77).
40. Gurevich, "Medieval Culture and Mentalite," pp. 37-40. Also see Oexle,
"Die 'Wirklichkeit' und das 'Wissen,"' pp. 81-84.
41. Oexle, "Deutungsschemata," pp. 76-83; idem, "Le travail au Xle siecle," pp.
5r58; idem, "Die 'Wirklichkeit' und das 'Wissen,"' pp. 80-84.
42. Oexle, "Le travail au Xle siecle," p. 58: ''Autrement dit, on ne peut pas ex­
clure que les bellatores et meme les laboratores aient partage une telle interpretation
des structures sociales et de leur role a l'interieur de la societe."
43. Oexle, "Deutungsschemata," pp. 90-105.
44. Adalbero of Laon, Poeme au roi Robert, vv. 286-88, 294 (p. 22). See below,
Chapter 2, note 6.
45. Duby, Three Orders, pp. 274-85, 319-21.
46. These laments are discussed below in Chapter 2.
47. The ancient world did not have a completely negative opinion ofagriculture.
The Stoics, for example, conceived of agricultural labor in positive terms, but their
intention was more to praise the simple life than to extol productive labor in itself
See van den Hoven, Work inAncient and MedievalThought, pp. 38-49. For the "Car­
olingian Renaissance oflabor," see Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture, pp. 83-86.
48. Le Goff, "Pour une etude de travail," p. 22.
49. Holdsworth, "Blessings ofWork," p. 63, also see p. 72 in connection with
Guerric oflgny's statement "labor in actione, fructus seu merces in contemplatione."
50. I ssac ofStella, "Sermo L in Nativitate Petri et Pauli," in his Sermones (PL 194:
1858), cited in Holdsworth, "Blessings ofWork," p. 62.
51. Bernard of Clairvaux, "Sermo in Feria IV Hebdomadae Sanctae."
52. Aelred of Rievaulx, Speculum caritatis 2.15 (CC Continuatio medievalis 1, p.
83), cited in Holdsworth, "Blessings ofWork," p. 63.
53. On the lay brethren, see Lekai, Cistercians, pp. 334-46; and Newman, Bound­
aries ofCharity, pp. 101-6.
54. Although not to the degree often assumed. See Alfonso, "Cistercians and
Feudalism." The difficulties experienced by educated monks engaging in field work is
illustrated by William of St. Thierry's account of Saint Bernard weeping because he
didn't know how to cut wheat; cited in Holdsworth, "Blessings ofWork," p. 63.
55. Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum, dist. 4, chap. 18 (PL 185, pt. 2,
no6-10). Also in Herbert, De miraculis, bk. 1, chap. 15 (PL 185, pt. 2, 1291-92).
56. As is pointed out by Martha G. Newman in "Crucified by theVirtues." I am
very grateful to Professor Newman for her advice concerning the Cistercian miracle
stories. On the lay brothers, see Hallinger, "Woher kommen die Laienbrlider?"; and
/
Lescher, "Lay Brothers."
57. Goswin ofVillers, VitaArnulfi, bk. 1, chap. 4 (especially pp. 563-64).
58. Herbert, De miraculis, bk. 1, chap. 29 (PL 185, pt. 2, 1301-3), cited in Lekai,
Cistercians, p. 338; Newman, "Crucified by theVirtues."
Notes to Chapter I 313
59. Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum 5-10 (PL 185, pt. 2, n40-44), cited
in Newman, "Crucified by the Virtues."
60. Le Goff, "Le travail clans les systemes de valeur," pp. 15"·:..20.
61. Ibid., p. 21.
62. Ibid., pp. r8; Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture, pp. 77-79, 87-97.
63. Van den Hoven, Work inAncientandMedievalThought, pp. 233-37.
64. Le Goff, "Le travail clans les systemes de valeur," pp. 4-13; idem, Time, Work,
and Culture, pp. 73-79.
65. Camille, "When Adam Delved," pp. 270-72.
66. Ovitt, "Cultural Context of Western Technology," pp. 79-80.
67. Constable, "Interpretation of Martha and Mary," in his Three Studies,
pp. 1-141.
68. Elias, Civilizing Process, pp. 206-12.
69. J. Alexander, "Labeur and Paresse." For the combination of lowliness and
productivity in the Berry Book of Hours see below, Chapter 6, p. 144.
70. As correctives to this tendency, see Holzapfel, Die sittliche 'Wertung; and
Ovitt, "Cultural Context ofWestern Technology," pp. 71-94.
71. Le Goff, "Le travail dans les systemes de valeur," pp. 7-8.
72. Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium 2.61 (p. 429). On this passage see be­
low, Chapter 9, note 71. On Honorius and his extensive output, see editor Lefevre's in­
troductory remarks, especially pp. 191-230 and 259-329. See also the articles by Flint
now collected in her Ideas in the Medieval "West and her recent HonoriusAugustodunen­
sis ofRegensburg. See also Gottschall, Das "Elucidarium" des Honorius Augustodunensis.
73. Honorius Augustodunensis, Imago mundi 3.1 (p. 125).
74. Berthold von Regensburg, Vollstandige Ausgabe seiner Predigten 2: 14: "So
woltest du gerne ein ritter sin, so muost du ein gebure sin unde muost uns bu.wen
korn und win. Wer solte uns den acker bu.wen, ob ir alle herren waeret?" That the
vernacular sermons attributed to Berthold were probably written by later writers
seems to be widely acknowledged. See the long note and bibliography in Fossel, Die
Ortlieber, pp. 24-25. I am grateful to Professor Robert Lerner, of Northwestern Uni­
versity, for this information.
75. Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger, p. 88: "Quintum genus per quintum £ilium fig­
uratur, ut sunt agricole, qui tam dilecti filii Dei sunt tam propter laborem continuum,
qui Deo placer, tam propter oppresionem, qua a dominus opprimuntur iniuste. . . . Sed
lamentabile nimis est, quod multi inter eos damnantur." p. 90: "Rustici, qui frumenta
laborant, estu uruntur, gelu frigent, de quorum laboribus uiuit omnis populus; [si]
cauerent isti sibi de furto, mendacio, periurio et his similibus, sancti fierent."
76. Buch der Rugen, vv. 1479-82 (p. 87):
so hat iu unser herre bereit
nach iuwer grozer arbeit
in sinem himelrkhe ruo:
da bring uns got alle zuo.
 Notes to Chapter I 314
(So has our Lord a place
prepared for you after your
great work, in His heav­
enly peace, when God
brings us all to Him.)
77. Die poetische Bearbeitung des Buches Daniel vv. 1777-1830 (pp. 28-29). See
also Martini, Das Bauerntum, p. 225.
78. Jacques de Vitry, "Sermo ad agricolas et vinitores et alios operarios," Ser­
mones vulgares, in Welter, L'exemplum, p. 458. The translation is from Wunderli, Peas­
ant Fires, p. 35.
79. Barney, "Plowshare of the Tongue,"p. 269. On the plow and the pious peas­
ant, see also Burdach, Der Dichter des Ackermann aus Bohmen 1: 61-68, 109-14.
80. Proverbs 20:4: "Because of the cold the sluggard would not plough: he shall
beg therefore in the summer, and it shall not be given him." Proverbs 12:II: "He that
tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread, but he that pursueth idleness is very
foolish."
81. Barney, "Plowshare of the Tongue," pp. 268-69.
82. Ibid.
83. Kirk, "Langland's Plowman," especially pp. 3, II.
84. Reiss, "Symbolic Plow and Plowman," pp. 3-14.
85. J. Alexander, "Labeurand Paresse," p. 444.
86. Reiss, "Symbolic Plow and Plowman," pp. II.
87. J. Alexander, "Labeur and Paresse," p. 440. Here Alexander takes issue with
Panofsky's interpretation of the Tres Riches Heures of the Due de Berri.
88. On the depiction of rustics in the Tres Riches Heures see below, Chapter 6,
p. 144.
89. R. Williams, The Country and the City, pp. 27-34. On images of rural pro­
ductivity and labor in early-modern Europe, see Vardi, "Imagining the Harvest."
90. Camille, "When Adam Delved," pp. 24r76.
91. R. Baldwin, "Peasant Imagery," p. 101; Kavaler, "Peter Bruegel and the Com­
mon Man," pp. II4-35. On different literary and artistic images of plowmen, see also
0. Hill, The Manor, the Plowman, and the Shepherd.
92. Landes, "La vie apostolique en Aquitaine," 582-85.
93. Duby, Three Orders, pp. 132-33.
94. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, pp. 571-73,
95. Leguai, "Les revoltes rurales," pp. 65-66.
96. Chelcicky, "O torjfm lidu (On the Three Peoples)," pp. 137-67, especially p.
165. See also Iwanczak, "Between Pacifism and Anarchy."
97. On Wyclif and the Three Orders see Gilchrist, "Social Doctrine of John
Wyclif," pp. 15r69.
98. Regarding the nickname bestowed by Sebastian Brant in 1494 as an indica­
tion of both Hans's station and his foolishness, see Niklashausen I476, p. 85. A sub­
jective and informal survey of this affair is given by Wunderli, Peasant Fires.
Notes to Chapter 2 315
99. Niklashausen I476, pp. 283-86; also excerpted in Quellen zur Geschichte des
Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. I¥, p. 63.
100. Niklashausen I476, pp. 191-96, 215, 262, 281.
101. Ibid., pp. 195-96; also in Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz,
no. 14b, pp. 66-67.
102. Sider, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, pp. 177-78.
103. Cited in Packull, "Image of the 'Common Man,"' pp. 262-63. The saying
could also serve as a lament for the lot of fallen humanity, as in, for example, Lotario
dei Segni, De miseria condicionis humane I.IO (p. 109).
104. Uhrig, "Der Bauer in der Publizistik," pp. 176-77.
105. Examples of these sentiments are provided in Uhrig, "Der Bauer in der
Publizistik," pp. 177-79.
106. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 32, fol. 124r.
107. Ibid., cap. 33, fol. I27V.
108. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauermtandes, no. 218, vv. 19-25 (p. 553):
Derwiisch in bi dem Kragen,
erfreuw das Herze din,
nim im, was er habe,
span uss di Pferdelin sin!
bis frisch und darzu unverzagt,
wann er nummen Pfennig hat
so riss im dGurgel ab!
109. See below, Chapter 6.
Chapter 2
I. Further examples of such literature are available in Falk, Etude sociale, p. II3.
2. Cited in Niccoli, I sacerdoti, i guerrieri, i contadini, p. 24.
3. Szucs, "Die oppositionelle Stromung," pp. 502-3.
4. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 3, fols. IIv-12v; cap. 31, fols.
II7r-121r.
5. Gower, ¼x clamantis, bk. 5, chap. 9 (pp. 216-18); idem, Mirour de l'omme, vv.
26425-484 (p. 293).
6. Adalbero of Laon, Poeme au roi Robert, vv. 286-94 (p. 22), corrected by Oexle,
"Die funktionale Dreiteilung," p. 30:
Hoc genus afflictum nil possidet absque labore.
Quis abaco poterit numerando retexere uerbis
Seruorum studium, cursus, tantosque labores?
Tesaurus, uestis, cunctis sunt pascua serui;
Nam ualet ingenuus sine seruis uiuere nullus.
Cum labor occurrit, sumptus et habere perobtant,
 Notes to Chapter 2 316
Rex et pontifices seruis seruire uidentur.
Pascitur a seruo dorninus quern pascere sperat.
Seruorurn lacrirnae gernitus non terminus ullus.
7. Duby, Three Orders, pp. 160-61.
8. Ibid., p. 160: "His point was to emphasize this humiliation." p. 161: "An at­
tempt was made to convince them [the servi ] that there was in fact a mutual ex­
change ofservices."
9. Adalbero ofLaon, Poeme au roi Robert, vv. 3r41 (p. 4).
10. Oexle, "Deutungsschernata," pp. 103-4.
n. Duby, Le moyen age, p. 98, a view effectively challenged by Bisson, "Feudal
Revolution," pp. 30-31.
12. Bue, L'ambigui"te du livre, pp. 40-49.
13. Benedict de Sainte-Maure, Chronique, vv. 13269-74 (1: 384); the translation
is Goldharnrner's, in Duby, Three Orders, pp. 274-75.
14. Benedict de Sainte-Maure, Chronique, vv. 13279-317 (1: 384-85).
15. Ibid., vv. 28853-76 (2: 197-98). On the rebellion of 997, see Kohn, "Freiheit
als Forderung."
16. Benedict de Sainte-Maure, Chronique, vv. 28877-958 (2: 198-200). For Wace,
see below, note 90 for this chapter.
17. Etienne de Fougeres, Le livre des manieres, vv. 689-92, 697-700 (pp. 84-85).
18. Duby, Three Orders, p. 284.
19. Etienne de Fougeres, Le livre des manieres, vv. 705-20 (p. 85).
20. Duby, Three Orders, p. 285.
21. Ibid., p. 320.
22. Friedrich Stegrniiller, Repertorium Biblicum medii acvi, vol. 5 (Madrid, 1955),
nos. 7704-7939.
23. Lacombe and Smalley, Studies on the Commentaries of Cardinal Stephen Lang-
ton, especially pp. 64-85, 145-51.
24. Vaux Saint Cyr, "Les deux cornrnentaires d'Etienne Langton sur Isai'e."
25. Ibid., pp. 233-34; Friedrich Stegrniiller, Repertorium Biblicum medii acvi, vol. 5
(Madrid, 1955), nos. 7817, 7824. The versions of Langton's moral commentaries on;
Isaiah in turn differ from one another substantially. Some fourteen manuscripts have
the incipit ''Audite celi et auribus. . . . Ideo invocat celurn et terram." From this group
I have examined the following:
London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 441
Cambridge, University Library, MS Peterhouse n9
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 55
Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, MSS 87 and 87A
Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine, MS 177
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MSS lat. 393 and 492.
Notes to Chapter 2 317
An important Isaiah commentary that Vaux Saint Cyr did not see-London, Lam­
beth Palace Library, MS 71, fols. 123r-15ov-was placed in a class by itself by Fried­
rich Stegrniiller (Repertorium Biblicum medii acvi, vol. 5, no. 7824). It also begins with
Isaiah's words ''Audite celi" but contains yet another type ofmoral gloss on Isaiah and
ends abruptly at 34:15. Still another recension ofthe moralized commentary on Isaiah
begins ''Audite celi auribus. . . . Ecce in ultionern inirnicorurn elernenta invocantur."
In this category I have looked at Troyes, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 893, and the
manuscript cited in Duby's Three Orders (pp. 319, 374), Vienna, Osterreichische Na­
tionalbibliothek, MS 1395, rendered erroneously in the English translation as being
in "Vienne." The Vienna manuscript was not available to Vaux Saint Cyr but is clas­
sified on the basis ofits incipit in accord with his categories.
26. I have relied on the following manuscripts of Langton's Minor Prophets
commentaries:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 31
Cambridge, University Library, Peterhouse, MS n9
London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 441
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS lat. 505
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Borghese 374
The commentaries in these manuscripts resemble each other, but not closely. The
Hosea commentary in Corpus Christi MS 31, for example, is considerably longer
(fols. 25r-78r) than the Lambeth Palace version (fols. 37v-49v).
27. Paris, Bibliotheque National, MS lat. 505, fols. 23r-23v, to Hosea 8:5, Proiec­
tus est vitulus tuus, Samaria. Samaria signifies custodia, the duty of prelates to care for
others. Clerics who rejoice in luxury neglect their sheep and anger God (Hosea 8:5
continues, iratus estfaror meus in eos), and will suffer in the world to come more than
even the sinner among those placed under them (fol. 23v): "et notatur que sicut longe
rnaius est ululare quarn clarnare, sic rnaior erit pena prelatorurn quarn subditorurn."
28. Isaiah 13:20-21: Nee pastores requiescent ibi, sed requiescent ibi bestiae. Lang­
ton remarks: "Prelatus enim qui in amore rnundi delectatur non debet dici pastor sed
bestia, quia oves suas devorat" (Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine, MS 177, fol. 134v).
Other versions: London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 441, fol. 120v, "non est pastor
sed bestia'; Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, MS 87, fol. 165r, "et non est dicendus
pastor sed bestia"; Cambridge, Corpus ChristiCollege, MS 55, fol. 250v, "non est pas­
tor sed bestia qui oves suas devorat"; Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS lat. 492, fol.
24v, "non debet dici [i.e., prelatus] sed bestia."
29. Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 1395, fols. 3v and 8v; Troyes,
Bibliotheque municipale, MS 893, fols. 59r-59v and 79v.
30. Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 1395, fol. 8v; Troyes, Biblio­
theque municipale, MS 893, fol. 8or: ''Ale principurn et prelatorurn debent esse po­
tentia ad defendendurn subditos et abundantia ad subueniendurn, sed contra hiis alis
 Notes to Chapter 2 318
opprimunt eos . . . quod in alis ipsorum inuenitur sanguis animarum pauperum nee
inueniuntur in fossis et non occulte sed manifeste opprimuntur."
31. Troyes, Bibliotheque municipale, MS 893, fol. Sor: "Dentes eius precisores
sunt maiores prelati qui sententiam fecerunt, sed mo/ares totum commouentes iusti­
ciarii sunt sub eis constituti qui totum depascunt" (Vienna, Osterreichische Nation­
albibliothek, MS 1395, fol. 8v: "Dentes eius precissim [sic] sunt maiores prelati qui
sententiam fecerunt, sed mo/ares totum commouentes sunt minores iusticiarii sub eis
constituti qui totum depascunt"). The influence of this interpretation is visible in a
sermon by Jacques de Vitry that describes the dentes as the greater prelates and the
mo/ares as lesser prelates; see Longere, "Un sermon de Jacques de Vitry," p. 55.
Compare Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 31, fol. 92v, commenting on
Amos 7:1, where the dentes signify both prelates and nobles of the greater sort while
mo/ares are the lesser figures. Here all are guilty of a more general pride and greed.
In directly commenting on Joel 1:6, Langton has the teeth and molars refer to the
evils of secular princes only, major and minor (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College,
MS 31, fol. 70v).
32. London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 441, fol. n2v: "Quare populum meum
atteritis et cetera. Officiales prelati pauperes commoliunt. Quod prelati non rapiunt
hoc officiales obiecta calumpnis extorquent. Isti sunt quasi catuli parua rapientes,
prelati leones."
33. London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 71, fol. 125v: "Ve vobis qui depasti estis
uineam meam et rapina pauperum in domibus [£ 126r] vestris. Populum meum et
cetera. Istud prelatos modernos qui bona subditorum rapiunt tangit. . . . Isti spoliunt
populum et cetera. Hoc dicit dominus ad prophetas. Qui seducunt populum dentibus
mordent et pacem predicant (Micah 3=5)." C£ Peter the Chanter, discussing Psalms 13:4
(Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS Lat. 120n, fol. 98r): "Qui devorant plebam meam,
vel sua ei auferenda sicut faciunt tyranni, uel cotidiano ministerio marsupia paupe­
rum hauriendo sicut faciunt sacerdotes, isti bibunt iniquitatem sicut aquam, et ita
hoc potest dici ad populum et ad clerum."
34. Commenting on Isaiah 7:8, sed caput Syrie Damasus, et caput Damascus Rasin,
the Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 55, fol. 247r, states: "Caput igitur Syrie
est superbia qui per Damascum significantur sunt qui sanguinem bibunt, qui facies
pauperum conmoliuntur [Isaiah 3=15], qui de sudore pauperum ornant equos Phaleris."
Cambridge, University Library, MS Peterhouse n9, pt. 4, fol. 3r, states: "Caput Syrie
est superbia, sunt hii qui significantur per Damascenam sunt qui sanguinem bibunt,
qui facies pauperum conmoliuntur, qui de sudore pauperum ornant equos Phaleris."
The words "ornant equos Phaleris" mean "they adorn their horses with noble trinkets
made from the sweat of the poor."
35. London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 441, fol. 38v: "Damascus interpretatur
potus sanguinis. Galaad translatio testimonium et significat pauperes. Per Damascum
intelliguntur hie diuites et potentes qui sanguinem pauperum bibunt spoliando eos
et opprimendo."
36. In similar language, and with citations of Amos and Micah, Jacques de Vitry
Notes to Chapter 2 319
likens the prelates who despoil and extort from those subject to them to leeches who
suck the blood of the poor; see Longere, "Un sermon de Jacques de Vitry," p. 55, "De
sanguisegis prelatorum et spoliatoribus subditorum."
37. Cited and excerpted in Bue, L'ambigui'te du livre, pp. 219-20. Langton uses
this same horrific image from Micah in commenting on Amos 1:9 (Cambridge, Cor­
pus Christi College, MS 31, fol. 79v) and on Isaiah 7:8 (Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, MS 55, fol. 247r; Cambridge, University Library, MS Peterhouse n9, pt. 4,
fol. 3r). Langton's comments on Micah 3:3 itself are on fol. rn8v of Corpus Christi 31.
38. Bue, L'ambigufte du livre, p. 220.
39. Ibid., pp. 206-31. See also Aurell, "Le roi mangeur."
40. Gregory I, Moralia in Job 21.15,22-23 (CC 143A, p. rn82).
41. Bue, L'ambiguite du livre, pp. 82-83, 97-rno.
42. Ibid., pp. 206-17.
43. Map, De nugis curialium, dist. 1, chap. 9 (p. rn). The metaphor appears in the
context of an anecdote with a pun on "keepers" and "kept out" (forestarii, Joris stare).
Seeing a group of foresters shouting abuse in front of the royal chamber of Henry II,
from which they had been excluded, the prior asked them who they were. They
replied they were the forest keepers, whereupon Hugh remarked, "Keepers, keep out"
(forestarii foris stent). Henry II laughed at this witticism, but the words applied to the
king as well, Hugh told him, for he too would be kept out when the poor, tormented
in this life by the royal keepers, were admitted to heaven (pauperibus quos hii
torquent paradisum ingressis, cum forestariis Joris stabitis).
44. Bue, L'ambigui'te du livre, pp. 219-20. Commenting on Psalms 3:7 (Dentes
peccatorum contrivisti, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS Lat. 120n, fol. 7r), Peter
distinguishes dentes from mo/ares. the former are the raptures, while the latter are
those who consume what the raptors have appropriated, thereby consenting to or
profiting from the acts of the actual pillagers. At the same time, however, dentes de­
notes the expositors of Scripture.
45. Lotario dei Segni, De miseria condicionis humann.15 (p. n7).
46. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 31, fol. 78v (to Amos, 1:3): "Quia
miseria pauperum in diuites transferetur. Pauperes enim oppressi et repulsam pa­
cientes testimonium ferunt quod miseria sit ab eis transferenda in eorum oppresores.
Et mittam ignem pene eterne in domum Aza.el id est diuitum." London, Lambeth
Palace Library, MS 441, fol. 38v: "Quia miseria pauperum transferetur in diuites.
Pauperes enim oppressi et repulsam pacientes testimonium ferunt quod miseria ab
eis sit transferenda in eorum oppressores. Et mittam ignem, pene eterne, in domum
Aza.hel scilicet in domum diuitum."
47. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 31, fol. 79v, and London, Lambeth
Palace Library, MS 441, fol. 39v. Langton directly glosses Malachi 2:10 in Lambeth
Palace 441, fol. rn8r, and in Corpus Christi 31, fols. I07V-rn8r.
48. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 31, fol. 28r; "Diuites et potentes de
regno suo temporali pauperes eiciunt et igitur non mirentur si pauperes eos eiciant
de regno suo. Beati enim pauperes quam ipsorum est regnum celorum. Faciamus ig-
 Notes to Chapter 2 320 Notes to Chapter 2 321

itur eos nobis amicos ut recipiant nos in eterna tabernacula." London, Lambeth 68. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv.6930-47 (BLVS 247,1: 289-90).
Palace Library,MS 441, fol. 3v, is the same except that it gives "ne igitur mirentur " 69. Ibid.,vv.3405-36 (pp.140-41).
rather than "et igitur non mirentur." 70. Ibid.,vv.2221-24 (p.92):
49. London,Lambeth Palace Library,MS 441,fol.16r.
Daz in wehset uf der erden.
50. Bue, L'ambigui'te du livre, pp.222-23.
Swer uber reht arme liute twinget
51. Jacques de Vitry,Historia occidentalis, p.81,cited in Bue,L'ambigui'te du livre,
Und si ze grozem schaden bringet
p.224: "Exinanite, exinanite usque ad fundamentum, crucifige, crucifige, macta et
Mit bete,mit ungelte und mit stiure,
manduca."
Des sele gahet ze dem hellischen fiure.
52. Bue,L'ambigui'te du livre, p.221.
53. Le Roy Ladurie,Montaillou, p.559. (Those that rule the earth certainly
54. Cited in Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p.305: ''And covetise maketh,also,that weigh on the poor people and bring
rich men eat the poore, as beastes done their lesous [pasture], holding them lowe." great harm to them with exactions,
55. Cited in Iwanczak,"Between Pacifism and Anarchy," p.280. monopolies, and taxes.Their souls go
56. Benedict de Sainte-Maure, Chronique, vv. 42792-977 (2: 593-98), cited in to the fires of hell.)
Bue,L'ambigui'te du livre, pp.226-27.
71. Ibid.,vv.7300-7314 (pp.304-5):
57. Gerald ofWales,De principis instructione fiber, dist.3,chap.30 (pp.322-24);
Map,De nugis curialium, dist.5,chap.6 (pp.464-68). Und werz ein hunt,
58. John of Worcester, Chronicle, p. 32. See also Constable, Three Studies, Ez mohte einen wilden heiden erbarmen,
pp.315-16. So man die unschuldigen armen
59. Miraculi S. Bertini Sithiensia, MGH Scriptores 15,pt.1,p.513: "Quoque im­ Vindet so jemerlich gevangen,
belle vulgus gemitum mugitus ad caelum mittebat, brachiis indefatigabiliter tensis
palmisque pansis finem certaminis Dei miserationi commendantes! ...dicamus, Uf dem solte man daz kriuze vil mer
karissimi ...quod in huius certaminis anxietate oratores et imbelles pulsatibus et in­ Predigen denne dort iiber mer
probitatibus orationum aures Dei ad clementiam indinabant." An tatan,valwen und an heiden,
60. Lambert of Ardres, Historia comitum Ghisnensium, chap. 18 (MGH Scrip­ Der geloube von uns ist gescheiden!
tores 24,pp.570-71). Wollen dise kristen bi uns sin
61. "Et clamor oppressorum ascendit in caelum,vindictam petens contra crude­ Und wollen als unmenschliche pin
les dominos," cited in Martini,Das Bauerntum, p.236. Legen an unsem ebenkristen,
62. Der Stricker, "Beispiel von den Gauhiihnern," in his Mare von den Gauhuh­ Wer solte ir leben denne fristen?
nern, p.72.
(And were he a dog,a wild heathen
63. Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder, no. 143, st. 7 (1: 235). See below,
would pity him,so are the innocent
Chapter 8,note 36.
poor so miserably imprisoned....
64. Roquetaillade (Rupescissa),"Vade mecum in tribulatione," p.499: "Consur­
T he cross should be preached to
get enim infra illos V. annos justitia popularis,et tyrannos proditores nobiles in ore
those [the oppressors] much more
bis-acuti gladii devorabit,et cadent multi principum et nobilium et potentium a dig­
than to those overseas,to Tartars,
nitatibus suis et a gloria divitarum suarum; et fiat affiictio in nobilibus ultra quam
Waldensians [?],and pagans.If these
credi possit, et rapientur majores, qui cum proditionibus depraedari facerant popu­
Christians here with us wish to lay
lum tam affiictum." On Rupescissa in general,see Bignami-Odier,Etudes sur Jean de
inhuman burdens on our fellow
Roquetaillade; and the more recent work by Lerner,"Popular Justice," especially pp.
Christians,who will save their souls?)
41-43; and Lerner's introduction to Johannes de Rupescissa.
65. Lerner,"Popular Justice," pp.48-50. 72. Reformation Kaiser Siegmunds, MGH Staatsschriften des spateren Mittelal­
66. "Yorn Rechte," vv.21r66 (pp.121-22). ters 6, p. 278: "Darumb wyss yderman,wer der ist, der da getar sprechen: 'Du hist
67. Bromyard,cited in Owst,Literature and Pulpit, pp.299-303,especially p.301. mein eygen!' der ist nit cristen; stet einer nit ab un geit got dye ere,so sol man in ab-
 Notes to Chapter 2 322 Notes to Chapter 2 323

nemen als ein heyden,wan er ist Christo widerig und seind dye gebot gotz ann im als ob er ein vihe were:
verloren."(Thus we know,whoever says to his neighbor "you are my property,"he is swerz tut,der is got unmere.
not a Christian.Whoever does not refrain from doing that and fails to give honor to
82. J.Baldwin,Masters, Princes and Merchants 1: 237-38 and 2: 172-73.
God should be considered a heathen,since he is repulsive to Christ and sirice God's
83. Ebner,"Der Bauer,"p.96.
commandments are lost on him.)
84. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed.Franz,no.94,p.301: "Das allain
73. Ibid.,pp.86,88: "Der hertzog antwort und sprach,'Ich merck dich woll,es
Got mit Aigentumb zuegehort,und die Menschen fur aigen under sich wellen biegen
ist war,was sagestu nach der gschriefft laiiterung ...aber ich bekenne,das yr sein nit
und schmuckhen und bei der Nesen in ir Geltnetz wellen ziehen ...wo ain armer
begerent noch ym lebent; ir verswerent in; einer nympt dem anndernn sein ere und
Man zu ainer Khirchen oder Altar zinsper ist,so wellen si mit armen Leudten Gwalt
sein gut ab; einer spricht den andernn an fur eygen....Wann yr unns erschlagen
haben als ainer uber sein Vieh und noch vii tiransicher."
mogent, so meynet yr,das ewig leben dadurch zu haben; do betriegent yr euch sel­
85. As given in Buszello, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, p. 17: "nit wie die kye und
ber; blibent yr doheym und fechtent mit den falschen cristen und weysset dye ziimm
kolber verkouft werden, dieweil wir alle nur ain herren, das ist got den herrn im
rechtenn,das wer ein gute merfart."' (The duke answered,"mark you well,it is true
hymel,haben."
what you say according to the textual passage [Scripture],but I know you do not de­
86. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed.Franz,no.27,p.129: "damit sich
sire to follow it in life.You forswear each other; one takes another's honor and goods.
die Prelaten understanden haben und das auch geton ...davon genotigt, getrangt
One speaks to another as if he were his property.You would like to strike us down
und vergwaltigt, unsern Bestant herter und erger gemacht, dann die Knecht und
and think to gain from that eternal life,but you deceive yourselves.Stay at home and
Hund seien."
settle that account with false Christians.That would be a good crusade.)
87. Tomas Mieres, gloss to lnstitutiones 7.2 ("De hiis qui sui vel alieni iuris
74. See below,Chapter II, pp.272-78.
sum"),Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica,MS Borghese 374,fol. 5V: "Nota quod
75. Brutus Janos Mihaly,Magyar Historidja 1: 261-62.
dicit supra modum quia humanitas semis debetur. Homines enim sunt, castigari
76. See below,Chapter 8,note n5.
tamen possum pro modo culpe citra mortem et membra mutilationem.Nulli enim
77. Froissart, Chronique, Livre I 3: 139; Jean de Venette, Chronique, excerpted in
est licitum aliud maletractare uel iniuste opprimere aut inhumaniter seuire." The
Medeiros,Jacques et chroniqueurs, p. 192,discussed pp.75-78.
manuscript is briefly described in A.Maier,"Un manuscrito de Tomas Mieres."For
78. Etienne de Fougeres,Le livre des manieres, vv.581-84 (p.81 ):
the right of mistreatment, see my essay "Catalan ius maletractandi," in Freedman,
Choiles! ja sunt ii crest:ien, Church, Law and Society. Mieres specifically denied the validity of this law sanction­
ne sunt paien ne Sulien, ing seigneurial mistreatment in his Apparatus (completed in 1439, printed in 1621 ),
S'a grant sorfet nes prenien, 2: 513-14.

nes devrion mestre en lien. 88. Chelcicky,"O torjim lidu (On the Three Peoples ),"pp.158-59.
89. Froissart, Oeuvres 9: 387.See Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject ofHistory,
(Now then! As they are
p.264.
Christians,neither pagans
90. Wace,Roman de Rou, vv.867-70 (1: 193 ):
nor Syrians,thus let us not
put excessive demands on Nus sumes humes cum ii sunt,
them; we must not put tels membres avum cum ii unt
them in bondage.) e autresi granz cors avum
et autretan suffrir poum.
79. Barcelona,Arxfo de la Corona d'Arag6,MS Salva de Infan�onia 69. I owe
this reference to Elena Lourie via David Nirenberg. (We are men as they are,with
80. On contemptuous typification of peasants as animals,see below,Chapter 6, the same members as they have
pp.139-50. and hearts as large,equally ca­
81. Thomasin von Zerclaere, Der Welsche Gast, vv. 8513-21 (GAG 425, vol. 1, pable of suffering pain.)
p.293 ):
91. I thus disagree with the opinion of Johan Huizinga in his \Waning ofthe Mid­
daz du dir einen vrien man dle Ages, p.60,that no one in the late Middle Ages understood that the wealth of the
woldest machen undertan, nobles came from the lower orders.
 Notes to Chapter 3 324
Chapter3
I. Walther von der Vogelweide, Die Gedichte, no. 22, vv. 12-15 (p. 28):
wer kan den herren von dem knehte scheiden,
swa er ir gebeine blozez fiinde,
het er ir joch lebender kiinde,
so gewiirme dez Beisch verzert?
2. Radbruch and Radbruch, Der deutsche Bauernstand, pp. 30-37.
3· Huizinga, Waning ofthe Middle Ages, pp. 64-65.
4. Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, chap. 45, par. 1453 (2: 235-36).
5� London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 441, fol. 108r: "Numquid non pater unus
ommum nostrum. Numquid non dominus unus creauit nos. Quare igitur despicit un­
_ Mortales igitur cunctos edit nobile germen.
usqmsque fratrem suum. Istud est contra auaros qui elemosinas facere nolunt,
.
fratrem emm despicit qui indigentem contempsit."
6. W:alsingha�, Historia Anglicana 2: 32, and idem, Chronicon Angliae, p. 321.
See A. Friedman, When Adam Delved," pp. 213-14. On the implications and con­
text of Ball's sermon, see Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 14-23, 102-19, 233-37;
and Burdach, Der Dichter des Ackermann aus Bohmen 1: 167-203.
7· Cited in Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 291.
8. Walsingham, Historia Anglicana 2: 33; and idem, Chronicon Angliae, p. 321:
_
"Contmuansque sermonem inceptum, nitebatur, per verba proverbii quod pro the­
mate sumpserat, introducere et probare, ab initio omnes pares creatos a natura, servi­
tutem per injustam oppressionem nequam hominum introductam, contra volun­
ta:em De�; quia, si Deo placuisset servos creasse, utique in principio mundi consti­
tmsset �ms servus, quisve dominus futurus fuisset." For a discussion of this passage,
see Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 108-9.
9. A. Friedman "When Adam Delved," pp. 214-19.
IO. See below, note 127 for this chapter.
II. Adalbero ofLaon, Poeme au roi Robert, vv. 41-42 (p. 4): "Nudi pontifices sine
fine �eq�antur aratrum, / Carmina cum stimulo primi cantando parentis." T his pas­
sage 1s discussed in Carozzi's introduction to the Poeme, p. lxxxi.
12. Resnikow, "History," pp. 391-405.
13· Ibid., p. 394. T he poem is also cited in Tettau, "Uber einige bis jetzt un-
bekannte Erfurter Drucke," p. 320:
Nu wolt ich wissen also geren:
wann die Edelleut herkumen weren;
Seintmal das die posen und die frumen,
nit mer dan von Adam und Eva sin kumen.
Da Adam reutet und Eva span,
wer was die zeit da ein Edelman?
Notes to Chapter 3 325
14. Cited in Resnikow, "Cultural History," p. 395.
15. Cited ibid., p. 396.
16. Ibid., pp. 397, 405.
17. A. Friedman, "When Adam Delved," pp. 213-20. Huizinga, Waning of the
Middle Ages, p. 64, remarks that at first "one is inclined to fancy that the nobles must
have trembled on hearing it [the couplet]. But, in fact, it was the nobility themselves
who for a long time had been repeating this ancient theme."
18. Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae 3.6 (lyric):
Omne humanum genus in terris simili surgit ab ortu.
Unus enim rerum pater est, unus cuncta ministrat.
Ille dedit Phoebo radios dedit et cornua lunae,
Ille homines etiam terris dedit ut sidera caelo,
Hie clausit membris animos celsa sede petitos.
19. T hus Boethius in Consolatio 3.6 (prose) observes that the title of nobility is
foolish and worthless ("lam uero quam sit inane quam futile nobilitatis nomen, quis
non uideat?"). For a general discussion, see Curtius, European Literature, p. 179.
20. Resnikow, "Cultural History," p. 396: "Ich bin ein man wie ein ander man,/
Allein das mir Gott die ehr vergahn."
21. Boockmann, ''.Zu den geistigen," p. 15.
22. In Gower's Mirour de l'omme and Confessio Amantis, cited in A. Friedman,
"When Adam Delved," p. 223.
23. T he original is cited in Resnikow, "Cultural History," p. 395:
Do adam sich mit frass vergifft
Da hiess jn got sein prot gewynnen
Mit hacken rewten vnd eua mit spynnen
In sweiss jres antlitzes auf der erden.
24. Andreas Capellanus, On Love 1.6 (p. 44).
25. Froissart, Oeuvres 9: 387.
26. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv. 1328-86 (BLVS 247, 1: 55-57) (the peas­
ant argument here is that "we are all descended from the same mother"); Hemmerli,
De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 6, fols. 19r-19v; Wittenwiler, Der Ring, vv. 7235-44
(pp. 308-10).
27. Boke ofSeynt Albans, pt. 3, sig. a 1 recto. See below, Chapter 4, p. 102.
28. Niccolo Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine 1 terzo, 13, cited in Guglielmi, "Reflex-
iones," p. 328.
29. Suard, "Hugues Capet," pp. 220-22; Ribemont and Salvat, "De Francion a
Hugues Capet."
30. Rigg, "Legend ofHugh Capet."
31. Hugues Capet, ed. la Grange, p. 126, cited in Falk, Etude sociale, p. n5. I have
 Notes to Chapter 3 326
also used the edition of Larry S. Crist and Fran�ois Suard (vv. 3297-99), under
preparation for the Anciens Textes Franpis series: "il est biaulz et hons, et s'il nest
de haut lin, / Au vrai considerer, et tout povre meschin, / Sont tout estrait d'Adam, et
Vilart et Justin."
32. Li Romans de Bauduin de Sebourc 1: 80, cited in Falk, Etude sociale, p. u6. An
edition of this by Crist and Suard has also been completed and is forthcoming in the
Anciens Textes Fran�ais series, vv. 2653-54'(p. 107): "Car il n'est nulz gentis, s'il n'est
a bien pensans, / Car trestout venons d'Eve, nos peres fu Adans."
33. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS lat. 16793, fol. 145r: "Quoniam Adam hu­
mani generis princeps exemplum meum est ut agricola comedam panem meum in
sudore vultus mei." I am indebted to Philippe Bue, of Stanford University, for this
reference.
34. Cited in DuBruck, Aspects ofFifteenth-Century Society, p. 18.
35. Caviness, Early Stained Glass, p. u3 and plate 6; Camille, "When Adam
Delved," pp. 247-65, 272. Note that at Sigena, Adam is digging while Eve is spinning.
36. Martini, Das Bauerntum, pp. 229-30.
37. Ostling, "The Ploughing Adam," pp. 13-19. I thank Michael Camille, of the
University of Chicago, for this reference.
38. On Christ as a plowman and the associated symbolism, see below, Chapter 9.
39. Camille, "Labouring for the Lord," pp. 430-32.
40. On the value of labor see above, Chapter I.
41. Several German examples are given in Heald, "Peasant in Mediaeval German
Literature," pp. 139-50.
42. This view appears most clearly in the pamphlet literature of the early Refor­
mation through such themes as the'dereliction of the clergy and nobility, their for­
mer willingness to work in the fields, their refusal to undertake the labor of Adam
owed by all his progeny, and the righteousness of those who earn their bread by their
physical efforts, who alone can be said to fulfill His commandments. See the exam­
ples cited in Uhrig, "Der Bauer in der Publizistik," pp. 176-78.
43. Petrarch, Von der Artzney. On the date of the illustrations, see Raupp, Bauern­
satiren, p. 9. For the portrayal of peasants in early sixteenth-century Germany, see
Raupp, Bauernsatiren, pp. 12-18; Scribner, "Images of the Peasant"; and Packull, "Im;.;
age of the 'Common Man."' The identity of the artist h�not been definitively estab­
lished. In the early twentieth century the woodcuts were ascribed to Hans Weiditz;
see Rottinger, Hans Weiditz. This was accepted by the Radbruchs, Der deutsche Bau­
ernstand, pp. 60-61. Raupp, Bauernsatiren, p. 9, regards it as likely that Weiditz was
the Petrarch Master, but Manfred Lemmer rejects this identification in his discussion
accompanying the reprinted edition of Von der Artzney, p. 198.
44. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 1, no. 57 (1: 53-54), "De fertilitate terrae." This is
repeated in the remedies for misfortune, bk. 2, no. 59, "De villico malo ac superbo"
(1: 153).
45. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 1, no. 85 (1: 72-73), "De bono domino"; Petrarch,
Von der Artzney, bk. 1, fol. mu, "Von einem guten herrn."
Notes to Chapter 3 327
46. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 2, no. 7 (1: 112-13), "De servitute"; idem, Von der
Artzney, bk. 2, fol. 8v, "Von Dienstparkeyt."
47. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 2, no. 29 (1: 134), "De servis malis"; idem, Von der
Artzney, bk. 2, fol. 38r, "Von den bosen knechten."
48. Cicero, Ein Buch, so Marcus Tullis Cicero der Romer zu seynem Sune Marco ...
(Augsburg, 1531), illustration reprinted in Jackel, Kaiser, Gott und Bauer, p. 31.
49. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 1, no. 16 (1: 1r14), "De origine generosa"; idem,
Von der Artzney, bk. 1, fols. 17r-18v, "Von adelichem Ursprung."
50. There are several classical precedents for the observation that since all people
come from the same origin, nobility is conferred by character, not birth. They in­
clude Sallust, Bellum lugurthinum 85,15; Juvenal, Satirae 8.20; and Seneca, De ben-
eficiis 3-28.
51. Vanderjagt, Qui sa vertu anoblist.
52. Scheidig, Die Holzschnitte des Petrarca-Meisters, p. 60.
53. Ibid., pp. 60-61; Zschelletzschky, "Ihr Herz war auf der Seite der Bauern,"
p.340.
54. Mohl, Three Estates, pp. 268-69.
55. Radbruch and Radbruch, Der deutsche Bauernstand, pp. 5r61.
56. Ibid., pp. 61-71.
57. Raupp, Bauernsatiren, pp. 13-19.
58. Martini, Das Bauerntum, pp. 230-31.
59. On bagpipes, see Nordstrom, Virtues and Vices; and Jones, "Wittenweiler's
Becki." I thank John B. Friedman for pointing these articles out to me.
60. Oexle, "Deutungsschemata," pp. 76-80; idem, "Le travail au Xle siecle," p. 55.
61. On medieval ideas of freedom in relation to the common origin of humanity,
see Graus, '"Freiheit' als soziale Forderung."
62. Aristotle, Politics 125¥-1255b, 1258b.
63. Aristotle, Politics, 1255a-b.
64. Carlyle and Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory 5: r8; Voltelini, "Der Ge-
danke der allgemeinen Freiheit," p. 192.
65. Cicero, Paradoxa Stoicorum, no. 5: only the wise man is free, and every fool-
ish man is a slave.
66. Seneca, De beneficiis 3.20: "Errat, si quis existimat servitutem in totum
hominem descendere. Pars melior eius excepta est. Corpora obnoxia sunt et adscripta
dominis; mens quidem sui iuris, quae adeo libera et vega est."
67. Cicero, De officiis 1.13; Seneca, De beneficiis 3.20; Carlyle and Carlyle, Medi­
aeval Political Theory 1: 23 and 5: 5; Voltelini, "Der Gedanke der allgemeinen Frei­
heit," pp. 192-93.
68. Digest (CodexJustinianus) I. 5.4, giving Florentinus's derivation of servus from
the term for those spared (servare) from being killed as war captives.
69. Ibid. 1.17.32: "Quod attinet ad ius civile, servi pro nullis habentur: non tamen
et iure naturali, quia, quod ad ius naturale attinet, omnes homines aequales sunt."
Digest 1.1.4: "Quae res a iure gentium originem sumpsit, utpote cum iure naturali
 Notes to Chapter 3 328
omnes liberi nascerentur nee esset nota manumissio, cum servitus esset incognita: sed
postquam iure gentium servitus invasit, secutum est beneficium manumissionis."
70. Cortese, La norma giuridica 1: 74-86, n8-21.
71. Bierbrauer, "Das Gottliche Recht," pp. 217-22.
72. An important recent work on the relation between sin and coercive power is
Sturner, Peccatum und potestas.
73. Bonnassie, "The Survival and Extinction of the Slave System in the Early
Medieval West," in his From Slavery to Feudalism, pp. 16-32; de Ste. Croix, "Early
Christian Attitudes."
74. Discussed in Carlyle and Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory 1: n3-14;
Sturner, Peccatum und Potestas, pp. 57-60.
75. Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 5-15-16 (Sources Chretiennes 204, pp.
204-12).
76. Ambrose, Exhortatio virginitatis 1.3 (PL 16: 352): "Nullum ergo ad commen­
dationem hominis condicio affert impedimentum; nee dignitas prosapiae meritum,
sed fides affert. Sive servus, sive liber, omnes in Christo unum sumus." See also selec­
tions from Ambrose cited in Carlyle and Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory 1: n5, n8.
77. Augustine, De civitate Dei 19.15. Behind this passage in Genesis stands Gen­
esis 1:26, where God decided to create man in His own image and gave him domin­
ion over the earth's creatures.
78. Above, Chapter 2; below, Chapter 10.
79. Cambridge History ofMedieval Political Thought, Robert Markus's discussion
on pp. 108-13. See also Sturner, Peccatum und Potestas, pp. 67-85.
80. Augustine, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum 1.153 (PL 34: 589-90).
81. Misfortune would become a standard explanation for servitude (as in Pe­
trarch), one that combined lament with resignation. See, e.g., the contrast between
natural equality and the ravages of fortune in Lotario dei Segni, De miseria condicio­
nis humane 1.15 (p. 117): "O extrema condicio servitutis! NaturaJiberos genuit, set for­
tuna servos constituit."
82. Augustine, Lettres I-29, letter 10.2 (pp. 168-70); letter 24 (pp. 382-86).
83. Gregory I, Moralia in job 21.15 (CC 143A, p. 1082).
84. Markus, End ofAncient Christianity, esp. pp. 1-17, 21r28.
85. Sturner, Peccatum und Potestas, pp. 89-94, 100-102.
86. Gregory I, Regula pastoralis 2.6 (PL 77: 34-35): "Nam sicut in libris Moral­
ibus dixisse me memini, liquet quod omnes homines natura aequales genuit, sed
variante meritorum ordine alio aliis culpa postponit."
87. See, e.g., Gerard of Cambrai's discourse at the Council of Arras (1025), in his
Acta synodi Attrebatensis in Manicheos, in PL 142: 1308: "Liquit, inquit beatus Grego­
rius, quod omnes homines natura aequales genuit; sed variante meritorum ordine
alios aliis culpa postponit. Ipsa autem diversitas quae accessit ex vitio, divino judicio
dispensatur, ut, quia omnis homo aeque stare non valet, alter rogatur ab altero." See
also Duby, Three Orders, p. 35.
Notes to Chapter 3 329
88. Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, Markus's statement on
p. 121: "There is a strong streak of egalitarianism in Gregory's omnes natura aequales
sumus: whereas Augustine pushed this equality back into primordial origins to ex­
plain its evident absence from our present world, Gregory made it a moral demand
here and now." See also Recchia, Gregorio Magno, especially pp. n8-20. Recchia sees
Gregory as unusually sympathetic toward the lower orders but draws a sharper dis­
tinction than Markus between Gregory's sense of original natural equality and the
present arrangement of society (ordo dispensationis). Sturner, Peccatum und Potestas,
pp. 85-94, argues that while Gregory sees rulership and subordination as necessary
consequences of sin, he also believes that control must be exercised constructively,
mercifully, and in accord with God's will. Human sinfulness is not an excuse for un­
trammeled domination.
89. Gregory I, Registrum epistolarum 9.27 (CC 140A, p. 588).
90. Bue, L'ambigui'te du livre, pp. 98-104.
91. The passage is edited in Dahan, 'Texegese de Genese l, 26," p. 152.
92. Gregory I, Registrum epistolarum 6.12 (CC 140, p. 380): "Cum redemptor
noster totius conditor creaturae ad hoc propitiatus humanam uoluit carnem assumere
ut diuinitatis suae gratia, disrupto quo tenebamur capti uinculo seruitutis, pristinae
nos restitueret libertati, salubriter agitur, si homines, quos ab initio natura liberos
protulit et ius gentium iugo substituit seruitutis, in ea qua nati fuerant manumitten­
tis beneficio libertate reddantur."
93. Aelfric, Catholic Homilies, cited in Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval Eng­
land, pp. 61-64. Even more explicit is Archbishop Wulfstan of York, who quoted Ael­
fric, adding that Christ bought the emperor and the poor man with His blood for the
same price (Wulfstan, Die '1nstitutes ofPolity, Civil and Ecclesiastical "p. 90).
94. See below, Chapter IO, pp. 250-251.
95. E.g., Oexle, "Die funktionale Dreiteilung," pp. 27-28.
96. Isidore of Seville, Sententiarum libri tres 3.47 (PL 83: 717): God has placed
some men under the domination of others so that "licentia male agendi servorum
potestate dominantium restringatur."
97. Oexle, "Die funktionale Dreiteilung," p. 28, citing the Council of Aachen
(816), Rather of Verona, Burchard of Worms, and lvo of Chartres. Carlyle and Car­
lyle, in Mediaeval Political Theory 2: n9-20, note Isidore's influence on the Decretists
Paucapalea and Rufinus.
98. Sturner, Peccatum und Potestas, pp. 95-102.
99. On the question of changes in slavery from the late Roman Empire to 1000,
see Martino, Uomini e terre in occidente, pp. 65-206; Goetz, "Serfdom and the Be­
ginnings of a 'Seigneurial System'"; and H. Hoffmann, "Kirche und Sklaverei."
100. Alcuin, lnterrogationes et responsiones,no. 273 (PL 100: 557). For the Roman
definition of servi, see below, Chapter 5, note 55. For the discussion of Carolingian
writers I am indebted to Milani, La schiavitu, pp. 356-57, and Ignor, Ober das allge­
meine Rechtsdenken, pp. 234-37.
 Notes to Chapter 3 330
101. Hrabanus Maurus, Commentaria in Genesim 4-9 (PL 107: 646-47).
102. Agobard of Lyon, Contra praeceptum impium, CC, Continuatio medievalis
52, p. 187.
103. Haimo of Au:xerre, Expositio in epistolas S. Pauli, chap. 3 (PL 117: 762-63):
"Servi non sunt per naturam, sed per culpam et propter peccatum, sicut Chanaan,
filius Cham. Propter peccatum enim venit captivitas et per captivitatem servitus."
Expositio in epistolas S. Pauli is wrongly attributed to Haimo of Halberstadt. On
Haimo's authorship see Iogna-Prat, "Coeuvre d'Haymon d'Auxerre," esp. 161-62.
104. Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali 2.22 (PL 106: 213).
105. Rather of Verona, Praeloquia 1.22 (CC, Continuatio medievalis 46A, pp.
22-23); the translation is Reid's in Rather ofVerona, Complete \Vorks, p. 40.
106. Ibid. 1.29 (pp. 30-31), translated in Reid, pp. 4r48.
107. Smaragdus, 1/ia Regia 30 (PL 102: 967-69).Voltelini, "Der Gedanke der all­
gemeinen Freiheit," p. 207, notes that the Carlyles exaggerate Smaragdus's position
as calling for the abolition of slavery (Carlyle and Carlyle, Medieval Political Theory
1: 208-9).
108. Atto ofVercelli, Expositio in Epistolas Pauli, chap. 6 (PL 134: 583).
109. H. Hoffmann, "Kirche und Sklaverei," pp. 1-6; Pelteret, Slavery in Early
Mediaeval England, p. 78; Councils and Synods with Other Documents 1: 678.
II0. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS 355, fol. 5r, passage edited in Dahan,
'Texegese de Genese 1, 26," p. 151: "Et presit piscibus. Non est dictum quod presit ho­
minibus. Quare? Forte dices: quia nondum homines erant. Certe eodem modo dic­
tum post diluvium: Terror noster erit super omnia animalia (Gen:9, 2). Non dicit 'su­
per homines,' et assignat Gregorius rationem in Moralibus, quia, etsi presit homo
aliis, potius debet attendere conditionem equalitatemque conditionis quam potes­
tatem ordinis, et esse in illis quasi unus ex illis."
m. Verlinden, L'esclavage dam /'Europe medievale; Bresc, 'Tesclave dans le monde
mediterraneen"; Stuard, ''Ancillary Evidence for the Decline of Medieval Slavery."
II2. V incke, "Konigtum und Sklaverei"; Bensch, "From Prizes of War to Do­
mestic Merchandise"; Meyerson, "Slavery and the Social Order."
n3. Krekic, 'Tabolition de l'esclavage a Dubrovnik."
n4. Burchard of Worms, Decretum, bk. 9, chap. 18 (PL 140: 818); repeated by Ivo
of Chartres, Decretum, pt. 8, chap. 156 (PL 161: 618); Ivo of Chartres, Panormia 4,
chap. 38 (PL 161: 1254); and Gratian, Decretum, C.29 q.2 c.I.
n5. Landau, "Hadrians IV. Dekretale 'Dignum est,"' especially pp. 517-21.
II6. On the Roman and canon law regarding serfdom, see Gilchrist, "Medieval
Canon Law on Unfree Persons," pp. 278-81; idem, "Saint Raymond of Penyafort,"
pp. 302-7; Conte, Servi medievali; and Sahaydachny Bocarius, "The Marriage ofUn­
free Persons."
II?. Carlyle and Carlyle, Medieval Political Theory 5: II42, 21-23. On tensions
and contradictions within Aquinas's consideration of slavery, see Killoran, "Aquinas
andVitoria,'' pp. 87-92.
Notes to Chapter 3 331
n8. Aquinas, Commentarium in VIII, bk. 1, lects. 3 and 4 (pp. 377, 379); Summa
theologica 2, 2, q. 57, art. 3 (p. 212). These passages are cited in Feo, "Dal pius agri­
cola," p. II8.
n9. Aquinas, In X libros Ethicorum ad Nicomachum, bk. 8, lect. II (p. 286). Cor­
respondingly, a tool is an inanimate slave.
120. Carlyle and Carlyle, Mediaeval Political Theory 5: 23-24; Nicholas of
Oresme, Le livre des politiques d'Aristote, p. 322.
121. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner; Wittenwiler, Der Ring, see above, note 26
for this chapter. Chaucer, "The Parson's Tale," Canterbury Tales, vv. 762-68; Konrad
von Ammenhausen, Schachzabelbuch, col. 4II, vv. 10764-71.
122. Szucs, "Theoretical Elements," pp. 268-69; Freedman, "Catalan Lawyers,"
pp. 291-98, 314.
123. Southern, Making ofthe Middle Ages, pp. 103-7.
124. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Wopfner, pp. 46, 61, 134-35.
125. Southern, Making ofthe Middle Ages, pp. 107-8.
126. Wace, Le Roman du Rou, vv. 867-70 (1: 193). See above, Chapter 2, pp.
44, 55.
127. Historia episcopum Autissiodorensium, p. 729: "Diabolicum profecto et per­
niciosum inventum! Nam de hoc sequebatur, quod nullus timor, nulla reverentia su­
perioribus potestatibus haberetur; sed in earn libertatem sese omnes asserere cona­
bantur, quam ab initio conditae creaturae a primis parentibus se contraxisse dicebant,
ignorantes peccati fuisse meritum servitutem." Discussed in Duby, Three Orders, pp.
331-32; Kohn, "Freiheit als Forderung," pp. 360-64; and Bouchard, Spirituality and
Administration, pp. 101-4.
128. Simeoni, "La liberazione dei servi," pp. 24-25.
129. M. Bloch, Rois et serfi, p. 151 n. 2: "Natura omnes homines sunt liberi; set
jus gencium aliquos servos fecit; et quia res ad suam naturam de facili revertitur."
130. M. Bloch, Rois et serfi, p. 150.
131. Bierbrauer, "Das Gottliche Recht," p. 224.
132. Regarding Catalonia, for example, see Freedman, "Catalan Lawyers."
133. Aristotle's teachings on slavery would become of key importance again in the
sixteenth century with the conquest of the New World. In justifying enslavement of
non-Christians, one could posit a debased nature that did not seem to violate Chris­
tian equality immediately, but this strategy usually required additional support from
an argument concerning punishment of sin rather than mere Aristotelian inferiority.
Gines de Sepulveda, the best-known defender of the enslavement of the Indies, re­
ferred to Aristotle in his 1550 work, the Apology, where, against Melchior Cano, he ad­
duced an argument concerning sin. Indians might not quite be natural slaves, but
their conduct (especially cannibalism) merited enslavement. In his debate with Bar­
tolome de las Casas in 1550-51, Sepulveda stated that the Indians were inferior and
needed supervision, but also that their "crimes" deprived them of any claim to self­
governance. This is discussed in Pagden, Fall ofNatural Man, p. n2.
 Notes to Chapter 4 332 Notes to Chapter 4 333
tion the statement that Noah cursed both Canaan and Ham by turnmg · them black.
. . . . . .
Chapter4 The passage 1s m Materialten zur Krittk und Geschichte des Pentateuchs 2.. 86-87, and
. .
1s mennoned m . Race and Slavery, p. 124. The passage is known only firoman
. Lew1s,
I. T. Hill, "Rigsthula"; J. Friedman, Monstrous Races, pp. 99-105; idem, . . . .
Arabic text of centunes later, and 1t 1s doubtful that Ephraim wrote it. In his S iac
"Nicholas's '.Angelus ad Virginem."'
commentary on Genesis, the connections among blackness, servitude, and the curse
yr
2. The best consideration of early Jewish commentary on Genesis 9 is Aaron,
are not made; Sanc�i Ephraem Syri, Corpus Scriptorum C hristianorum Orientalium
"Early Rabbinic Exegesis." I am grateful to Benjamin Braude, Steven Benin, and
152, pp. 63-64 (Lann trans., Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
Alexandra Cuffel for their help with the talmudic and midrashic material.
51). � thank Father Columba Stewart for his help with these texts and Profess�::�f
3. Aaron, "Early Rabbinic Exegesis," pp. 722-29, citing the Oxford Companion
basnan Brock for his advice on the question of authenticity.
to the Hebrew Bible and a number of other texts, including the scurrilous assertions of
16. In general, see Lewis, Race and Color in Islam; idem, Race and Siavery; Dav1s,·
Tony Martin, The Jewish Onslaught: Dispatches from the Wellesley Battlefront (Dover,
Slavery and Human Progress, pp. 32-51; and Evans, "From the Land of Canaan."
Mass., 1993), PP· 32-33.
4. As correctives, in addition to Aaron's work, see Isaac, "Genesis, Judaism and �7- Lewis, Race and Color in Islam, pp. 124-25. Other e arly examples are given in
Dev1sse, Image ofthe Black in Western Art 2: 221 n. 179.
the 'Sons of Ham"'; and Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. 337 n. 144:
18. Al-Tabari, History [215] 2: 14.
5. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 70a (pp. 477-78): Rab opting for sodomy,
19. J. Friedman, Monstrous Races, p. IOI.
R. Samuel for castration, 'Ubr the Galilean for both.
20. This was an opinion, it should be pointed out, that Ibn Khaldun sought to
6. Ibid., Sanhedrin 108b (p. 745). On this passage see Aaron, "Early Rabbinic
refute, in his Muqaddimah 1: 169-70. On the other hand, he was confident that
Exegesis," p. 740. Noah's curse on the raven also figures in Hugo von Trimberg, Der
black Africans were u�ique in t�at th�y accepted enslavement because they were of a
Renner, vv. 2515-20 (BLVS 247, 1: 104).
lower order of humanity, more like animals capable of dome stication·, see LeWIS, n�
· L\UCe
7. Midrash Rabbah, Bereshith Rabbah 36.7 (1: 293). See also Pirke de Rabbi
and Color in Islam, p. 38.
Eliezer, p. 170; Gero, "Legend of the Fourth Son of Noah," pp. 321-22.
21. Evans, "From the Land of Canaan," pp. 27-34.
8. On the context and implications of these statements, see Aaron, "Early Rab­
22. These people were associated as much with Asia as with Africa. For medieval
binic Exegesis," pp. 740-41.
scholars, Ham was not as exclusively connected with Africa as he would be in the
9. For the context and moral implications of the story of Ham and other seem­
modern er�. Moreover, Africa,_ understood in i:s ancient sense as largely Mediter­
ingly harsh biblical legislation, see Goodman, "Biblical Laws of Diet and Sex."
ran�an �rtca, was not n�ce�sanly_ thought of as mhabited by blacks. I am grateful to
IO. Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary, p. 127. See Aaron, "Early Rabbinic Exegesis,"
BenJamm Braude for pomtmg this out to me. See also Fischer, Oriens-Occidens­
pp. 725-27. Earlier in his Itinerary, Benjamin calls the inhabitants of Khulam
Europa, pp. 10-19.
(Quilon) on the Malabar coast "sons of Cush," describing them as black, honest,
23. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, bk. 9, chap. 2, nos. 2, 10, 13, 25, 39, 59
prosperous traders with a passion for stargazing. Among them dwell Jews who are
( pp. 127-35).
also black (pp. 120-21).
24. J. Friedman, Monstrous J?a_c�s, pp. 99-103 . Benjamin Braude is working on
II. Philo, De Ebrietate, chap. 2 (LCL 227, pp. 319-23); idem, Quaestiones et solu­ _ .
d1sentanglmg
. the manuscnpt tradmon of Mandeville, especially with regard to his
_
tiones in Genesim 2.65 (LCL 380, pp. 165-67); Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone,
treatment of the medieval concepts of race, genealogy, and Noah's offspring.
cap. 139, p. 488; Origen, In Genesim, in PG 12: 108 (to Genesis §:25).
25. Southern, Western Views of Islam, pp. 16-17; Zacour, Jews and Saracens,
12. J. Friedman, "Nicholas's 'Angelus ad Virginem,"' pp. 176-77.
pp. 17-22.
13. Funkenstein, "Basic Types of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemics."
26. Dasfruhmittelhochdeutsche "Wiener Genesis, vv. 655-56 (p. 135): "Sumelich Burn
14. Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone, cap. 139, p. 488; Ambrose, Epistolae
begarewe ir sconen varwe: / si wurten swarz unt egelkh den ist nehein liut gelkh."
7.37.6-7 (CSEL 82, pt. 1, pp. 45-46); idem, De Noe et Arca, chap. 30-32 (PL 14:
(They completely lost their beautiful appearance. They became black and terrible;
432-35); Ambrosiaster, Commentarius in epistolam ad Colossenses 4.1 (CSEL 81, pt. 3,
the�e are n? people like them.) On Cain's descendants see Ruth Mellinkoff, Mark of
p. 202); Claudius Marius Victorinus, Alethia 3.76 (CC 128, p. 169); Sulpicius Severus,
Cain; J. Friedman, Monstrous Races, pp. 93-106; Emerson, "Legends of Cain."
Chronica 1.4 (CSEL 1, p. 6). Ham's laughter also appears in a ninth-century riddling
27. Emerson, "Legends of Cain," pp. 925-26. That Cain (rather than Ham) was
dialogue and an eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon prose miscellany attributing slavery
to Ham's mockery of Noah: see T. Hill, " Rigsthula," pp. 82-83. the progenitor of b�ack Africans "":as still a common assumption in eighteenth-cen­
tury Portugal, as evidenced by a dialogue between a miner and a lawyer concernin
15. Such a connection does appear in a text attributed to Ephraim of Syria (died
373), which adds to the supposition that Canaan first saw Noah's inebriated condi- Brazilian slavery (published 1764), cited in Davis, Problem of Slavery, pp. 459_6o�
 Notes to Chapter 4 334
The Mormon church held that the offspring of Cain were black, that their descen­
dants were Egyptian, and that Canaan married an Egyptian with the result that
Africans were doubly cursed (as noted by Mellinkoff, Mark of Cain, pp. 78-80). A
special revelation allowed blacks full membership in the Mormon Church in 1978
without explicitly renouncing the Cain-Ham theory of their origin.
28. In general, see J. Friedman, Monstrous Races; Mellinkoff, Mark of Cain; and
Dahan, 'Texegese de l' histoire de Cain et Abel."
29. Ti.ibingen, Universitatsbibliothek MS Mc 295; a glossed manuscript of the
codex, fol. 153r, accompanies Codex 6, 1 "De fugitivis servis." I am grateful to Pro­
fessor Michael Camille for pointing this illustration out to me. Compare it with the
Cambridge, St. John's College, MSK. 26, fol. 6v, showing Cain with horns and kinky
hair, illustration 7.
30. This picture is also described in Mellinkoff, Outcasts 1: 134, and v<;>L 2, plate
6.50.
31. Prudentius, Hamartigenia, w. 1-35 (LCL 387, pp. 200-202).
32. Heald, "Peasant in Mediaeval German Literature," pp. II9-20.
33. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, v. 15636 (BLVS 248 2: 261).
34. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 2, no. 59 (1: 154), "De villico malo ac superbo":
"Profecto autem et si Poeta rusticos ultimos a iustitia derelictos faciat, ut bis dixi,
apud uos tamen hominem primum humano semine genitum, et agricolam fuisse
constat et parricidam, ut fuisse semper pessimi videantur." A poem attributed to
Cecco d' Ascoli, edited in Merlini, Satira contro il villano, p. 185, slightly corrected by
Feo, "Dal pius agricola," pp. 125-26:
el to ricolto invola
et impe il suo granaro,
e po cerca comperare,
e cos{ rico doventa,
perche l' e della somenta
del traditor Cain.
(He [the rustic] steals
your harvest and fills
his granary and then
tries to buy [more?].
And so he becomes
rich, for he is of the
seed of the traitor
Cain.)
A sixteenth-century Italian ''Alphabet Against the Villeins" states (under the letter
"D") that the rustic "nation" derived from Cain. It is printed in Merlini, Satira contro
il villano, app. 6, pp. 225-28, in two versions: "Da Cain derivo questa natione" (p.
225) and "Deriva da Cain questa natione" (p. 227).
Notes to Chapter 4 335
35. Konrad von Ammenhausen, Schachzabelbuch, cols. 379-380, w. 9744-70
(Cain); cols. 4II-12, w. 10758-77 (Ham). Also see cols. 42r28 for the editor's dis­
cussion of the relationship between Konrad von Ammenhausen and Jacobo de Ces­
solis with regard to Ham. In William Caxton's English version of the chess allegory
(the first book printed in England), Cain was the first to work the land, and those
who now do so expiate Adam's transgression; but nothing is said about Ham or servi­
tude: ''And we rede in the bible that the first labourer that euer was cayn the first sone
of adam . . . it behoueth for necessyte that some shold laboure the erthe, after the
synne of adam'' (Caxton, Game ofthe Chesse, pp. 76-77).
36. Gower, Vox clamantis, bk. 1, chap. 10, w. 747-82 (pp. 42-43). The rubric to
the chapter reads: "Hie dicit se per sompnium vidisse progenies Chaym maledictas
una cum multitudine seruorum nuper regis Vluxis, quos Circes in bestias mutauit,
furiis supradictis associari." Verses 757-58 (p. 43) refer to the "Septem progenies, quas
ipse Chaym generauit, / Cum furiis socii connumerantur ibi."
37. See above, Chapter 1, pp. 28, 34.
38. Snowden, Before Color Prejudice, especially pp. 99-108.
39. Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, pp. 46-50.
40. Bauder, Paradise on Earth, p. 17.
41. Mark, Africam in European Eyes, pp. 19-53.
42. Gliozzi, Adamo e il nuovo mondo, pp. m-46.
43. Azurara, Cronica dos feitos notdveis 2: 103-4. I am grateful to Professor Ken­
neth Wolf, of Pomona College, for this reference.
44. Winthrop Jordan, White over Black, pp. 40-41.
45. I owe this information to Professor Jorge Canizares, of Illinois State Univer­
sity. His paper "New World, New Stars: Patriotic Astrology and the Invention of In­
dian and Creole Bodies in Colonial Spanish America, 1600-1650," delivered at the
John Carter Brown Library of Brown University, explores how explanations of racial
subordination fit with patriotic efforts to dispute theories that the climate and .istro­
logical configurations of the New World were pernicious. The native inhabitants were
inferior not because of the physical condition of the colonies but because of their own
debased nature. I am grateful to Professor Canizares for permission to cite his work.
46. Braude, "Sons of Noah," pp. 134-38; Hanneman n, Curiosum scrutinium,
cited in Perbal, "La race negre," pp. 158-59. Hannemann was less concerned with the
origins of slavery than were his Spanish and English colleagues. His main concern
was to construct an ethnography based on classical authorities that could be recon­
ciled with the curse of Noah.
47. Blakely, Blacks in the Dutch World, pp. 207-9, 218-19.
48. Fredrickson, White Supremacy, pp. 170-71.
49. C. Brown, "Foundations of British Abolitionism," pp. 228-36; Tise, Proslav­
ery, pp. 41-96.
50. A number of such arguments are described by Peterson, Ham and ]apheth.
For scriptural arguments justifying slavery, including Noah's curse upon Ham, see
Tise, Proslavery, pp. II6-25, especially the table on p. II7.
 Notes to Chapter 4 336
51. A notable example is the physician Samuel A. Cartwright, who supposed that
the physiological deficiencies of blacks and their consequent indolence and misery
showed that the account of Noah's curse in Genesis was assuredly true, "as if the reve­
lations of anatomy, physiology and history, were a mere re-writing of what Moses
wrote" (cited in Peterson, Ham and]apheth, pp. 72-73). But Cartwright later gave up
Noah's curse in favor of a theory of the separate origins of the races; see Fredrickson,
Black Image, pp. 87-88. Cartwright had a pre-Adarnic black population intermarrying
with Cain, thus moving the origins of a cursed race from Harn back to Adam's son.
52. An unsigned article entitled "The Black Race in North America: Why Was
Their Introduction Permitted?" contains a fanciful dialogue (pp. 657-58) in which the
sons of Harn accept their "long and fearful penance." T hey acknowledge, "we also,
fallen as we are, have a duty to perform," the duty, namely, of providing the labor to
fulfill the mission of the sons of Japheth to tame the land. T he article was probably
written by George Tucker, a congressman and professor of moral philosophy at the
University of Virginia, according to Peterson, Ham and]apheth, pp. 92-95, 106.
53. As in, for example, Stringfellow's ''A Brief Examination of Scripture Testi­
mony." See also Ron Bartour, "Cursed Be Canaan' ' ; and Peterson, Ham and Japheth,
pp. 42-44.
54. Peterson, Ham and]apheth, pp. 45-46; Fredrickson, Black Image, pp. 63-64.
Proslavery arguments could be connected with various theories of government affect­
ing the free: evocation of a seigneurial order (Genovese, World the Slaveholders Made);
egalitarian racism condemning the exploitation of white labor in Britain and the in­
dustrial North (Fredrickson, Black Image, pp. 58-70); and a defense of a generalized
inequality joined to order, enterprise, and moral reform-what has been called "con­
servative Republicanism" (Tise, Proslavery, pp. 34r62).
55. Burnett and Dalche, ''Attitudes Towards the Mongols," pp. 160-61.
56. J. Friedman, Monstrous Races, pp. 102-3.
57. Das friihmittelhochdeutsche Wiener Genesis, vv. 766-67 (p. 145): "Vone
Charnes sculde wurde allerlist scalche. / e waren si alle eben vd unde edele." (From
Ham's guilt there were from then on serfs. Once all had been equally free and noble.)
58. Anton Chekhov, "V Ssylke" ("In Exile"), Sochineniya (Moscow) 8 (1977), p.
43: "Ya, bratusha, ne rnuzhik prostoi, ne iz Kharnskovo zvaniya a d'yakovski sin."
(English translations normally leave out the reference to Harn.) I am grateful to
Vladimir Mazhuga, of Saint Petersburg University, for this reference.
59. Matuszewski, Geneza Polskiego Chama. I thank Professor Waclaw Uruszczak,
of the Jagiellonian University, Cracow, for this reference.
60. Milani, La schiavitu, pp. 288-339; Teja, "San Basilio y la esclavitud."
61. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto 20.51 (PG 32: 162); Ambrose, Epistolae 2.7 (CSEL 82,
pt. l, pp. 44-47).
62. Ambrose, De Noe et Arca, chaps. 30-32 (PL 14: 432-35).
63. Ambrose, De Helia et Ieiunio po (CSEL 32, pt. 2, p. 419); Gratian, Decre­
tum, D.35 C.8, 3. See Weigand, Die Naturrechtslehre, pp. 133-36, 144-48, 195-214,
262-63.
Notes to Chapter 4 337
64. Arnbrosiaster, Commentarius in epistolam ad Colossenses 4.1 (CSEL 81, pt. 3,
p. 202): "Denique peccati causa Carn servus audivit. Cui sententiae veteres adsensere,
ita ut definirent ornnes prudentes esse liberos, stultos autern ornnes esse servos, quia
prudens abstinet a peccatis, ut hie ingenuus sit, qui recta sequitur, servus autern qui
per stultitiae inprudentiarn subicit se peccato. Unde et Carn propter stultitiarn, quia
risit nuditatern patris stulte, servus est appellatus."
65. John Chrysostom, Homiliae de Lazaro, concio 6, 7 (PG 48: 1037-38).
66. John Chrysostom, Sermones in Genesim, no. 4, 2 (PG 54: 595.
67. Ibid., no. 5, 1 (PG 54: 599).
68. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Genesim 29.6-7 (PG 53: 269-73).
69. Augustine, De civitate Dei 16.1-2, 19.15.
70. Augustine, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum 1.153 (PL 34: 589-90). T his for­
mulation is repeated in Alcuin, Interrogationes et responsiones, no. 273 (PL 100: 557);
Hairno of Auxerre, Expositio in epistolas S. Pauli (incorrectly attributed to Hairno of
Halberstadt), chap. 3 (PL n7: 762-63); and Hrabanus Maurus, Commentaria in Gen­
esim 4.9 (PL 107: 646-47).
71. Sturner, Peccatum und Potestas, pp. 106, n2.
72. Gregory I, Moralia in Job 21.14-15 (CC 143A, pp. 1081-82). See also Gregory's
Regula pastoralis 2.6 (PL 77: 34).
73. Isidore of Seville, Sententiarum libri tres 3.47 (PL 83: 717).
74. Oexle, "Die funktionale Dreiteilung," p. 28. For the Capuciati, see above,
Chapter 3, p. 84.
75. J. Friedman, Monstrous Races, pp. 101-3; T. Hill, "Rigsthula," pp. 82-83.
76. Honorius Augustodunensis, Imago mundi 3.1 (p. 125). In the German Luci­
darius, an amalgam of several works of Honorius and William of Conches, written
in the latter half of the twelfth century, this passage appears with servi rendered as
eigenleute (bondsmen), indicating serfs rather than slaves: "In dez kunegez ziten
wurde die lute indru geteilet: von Sern karnen die frigen, von Jafet cam.en die ritere,
von Karn carnen die eigin lute." Lucidarius aus der Berliner Handschrift, p. 8. On
eigenleute in connection with other German terms for peasants in the period
1060-n80, see Stackrnann, "Bezeichnungen fur 'Bauer,"' p. 172. On servi as serfs
rather than slaves, see Barthelemy, "Qu'est-ce que le servage," especially pp. 271-72.
77. Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica 5= 708, cited in Milani, La schiavitu,
p. 376.
78. Antoninus, Summa theologica, bk. 2, tit. 3, chap. 6, cited in Milani, La schi­
avitu, p. 377.
79. Mirror ofjustices, p. 76.
80. W Muller, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung," p. 30; M. Bloch, Rois et serfi, p. 140
n. 2.
81. J. Friedman, "Nicholas's 'Angelus ad Virginern,"' pp. 175-80.
82. Southern Version of "Cursor Mundi," vv. 2133-36 (1: 102-3). T he Northern
Version is excerpted in T. Hill, "Rigsthula," p. 84.
83. Dives and Pauper, precept 4, chap. 1 (Early English Text Society 275, p. 305):
 Notes to Chapter 4 338 Notes to Chapter 4 339
''And thus for scornynge & vnworchepe that the sone dede to his fadir began first Do sprach der gebur einer sa zehant:
bondage & thraldom & was confermyd of God." "Nu alerest mir bekant
. 84. Chaucer, "The Parson's Tale," Canterbury Tales, vv. 762-68. For Gower, see Daz wir immer miiezen wesen
above, note 36 for this chapter. Vernoyert vole, s:it ir gelesen
85. Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject ofHistory, pp. 262-70. On Ham as as­ Habt daz er Noyer hiez,
trologer, see also J. Friedman, "Nicholas's 'Angelus ad Virginem,"' pp. 177-78. Der uns disen segen liez
86. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv. 15634-37 (BLVS 248, 2: 261) (Cain), Daz uns immer sol wesen we."
and vv. 1315-1406 (BLVS 247, 1: 55-58) (Ham); Konrad von Ammenhausen, Schachz­
abelbuch (see above, note 35 for this chapter). Konrad follows his discussion of Noah's (Then one of the peasants spoke
curse with a denunciation of drunkenness (cols. 4n-16, vv. rn766-958). He cites suddenly, saying "Only now I un­
Saint Ambrose on drunkenness and subordination but changes the consequence of derstand that we must always be an
the invention of wine from slavery to serfdom (dienstes von eigenschaft), col. 4n, vv. apostate people, because you have
10768-rn771. read that he was called Noah who
87. Enikel, Weltchronik, vv. 2917-44 (MGH Deutsche Chronikon 3, pt. 1, pp. left us this blessing, for which we all
56-58); Gengenbach, "Der Bundtschu," vv. 67-72, 93-96 (pp. 24-25); Hemmerli, must suffer.")
De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 6, fol. 19r; cap. 7, fol. 28r. 93. Ibid., vv. 1394-1459 (pp. 58-60).
88. The French example is the fifteenth-century Le mistere du Viel Testament, vv. 94. Wittenwiler, Der Ring, vv. 72or44 (pp. 308-rn).
6472-78 (1: 252). 95. Ibid., vv. 7242-44 (p. 3m): ''Also sein wir nicht geleich: / Einr ist arm, der an­
89. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 6, fol. 19r; cap. 7, fols. 28r-28v. der reich, / Einr ein gpaur, der ander edel." The translation is from Wittenwiler's
90. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv. 1323-29 (BLVS 247, 1: 55): "Ring" and the Anonymous Scots Poem "Colkelbie Sow," p. 97.
96. Boke ofSeynt Albans, pt. 3, sig. a 1 recto: "A bonde man or a churle wyll say,
"Vil lieber herre, wie gefueget sich daz,
'All we be cummyn of Adam.' So L ucifer with his cumpany may say, 'All we be cum­
Daz iu herren is vii baz
myn of heuyn."'
Denne uns armen geburen st?
97. Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali 2.21 (PL rn6: 213), citing Gregory I,
Sim ein liute eigen, die andern fd?"
Moralia in Job 2I.IO and 2u5, which restates Augustine's statement in De civitate Dei
"Ja," sprach ich. Das war im zorn.
19.15 that God conferred dominion over animals, not over other men.
Und sprach: "Nu s:i wir doch geborn
98. Atto ofVercelli, Expositio in Epistolas Pauli, chap. 6 (PL 134: 582-83).
Von einer muoter alle!"
99. Sachsenspiegel Landrecht 3.42.3 (pp. 223-26). On this section of the Sachsen­
(Very dear lord, how does it come spiegel, see W Mi.iller, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung," pp. 25-29; Kisch, Sachsenspiegel
about that you lords are so much bet­ and Bible, pp. 133-40; and Voltelini, "Der Gedanke der allgemeinen Freiheit,"
ter off than us poor peasants? Are pp. 182-86.
some people bondsmen while others mo. Sachsenspiegel Landrecht 3.42.3 (pp. 224-25): "Ok seggen sumleke lude, it
are free? "Yes," I said. That made him queme egenscap van Cam, Noes sone; Noe segende twene sine sone, an deme drid­
angry, and he said "But we are all born den ne gewuch he nener egenscap; Cam besatte Affricam mit sime geslechte, Sem
of one mother.") blef in Asia, Japhet, unse vordere, besatte Europam; sus ne blef er nen des anderen.''
91. Ibid., vv. 1376-79 (p. 57): (There are some who say that servitude began with Ham, Noah's son. Noah blessed
two of his sons; nothing is said about servitude as regards the third. Ham settled
Und sprach: "Verfluocht s:i Chanaan Africa with his progeny. Shem remained in Asia. Japhet, our ancestor, settled Europe.
Und allez s:in geslehte Thus neither can be said to belong to the other.)
Sol diener und eigen knehte Cf. Petrus Comestor, Historia scholastica, Genesis, chap. 36 (PL 198, col. rn87):
Mtner zweier siine s:in!" "Maledixit autem non filio, sed filio filii, quia sciebat in spiritu filium non servitu­
rum fratribus, sed semen eius, nee omnes de semine sed eos, qui de Chanaan de­
scenderant. . . . Sem Asiam, Cham Africam, Japhet Europam sortitus est.'' Kisch,
 Notes to Chapter 4 340
Sachsenspiegel and Bible, p. 138, points out that by making Ham settle Africa with his
progeny, so that all of Ham's offspring are independent of their cousins and hence
free, Eike von Repgow changes the implication of Petrus Comestor, who believed
Canaan's descendants were subjugated.
101. The author of the Book ofSt. Albans claimed that Ham settled not in Africa
but in the cold northern regions that would be called Europe, "that is to say the con­
tre of churlys" (Boke ofSeyntAlbans, pt. 3, sig. a 2 recto). This eccentric theory had at
least the virtue of accounting for the ubiquity of European serfs or churls, but it had
few if any imitators.
Eike von Repgow, however, was himself unusual in placing Ham exclusively in
Africa. Although this is consistent with the passage from Petrus Comestor cited in
the previous note, in other works Petrus located Ham's progeny in both Africa and
Asia (I thank Benjamin Braude for this information).
A refutation somewhat similar to Eike's argument that the offspring of one bibli­
cal figure do not serve the descendants of the other was offered by the Islamic jurist
Ahmad Baba (died 1627), an African writing in Timbuktu. Ahmad Baba agreed with
the common opinion that heathens could be licitly enslaved but he denied that Mus­
lims could be, no matter what their color. He rejected the notion that Ham's descen­
dants were cursed with enslavement, since God in his mercy could not inflict such
a punishment on so many in retribution for one man's sin (Lewis, Race and Slavery,
pp. 57-58).
102. Wyclif, "De servitute civili et dominio seculari," p. 146.
103. Ibid., p. 147.
104. Luther, Lectures on Genesis (to 9:26 and 10:7), pp. 174-78 and 193-95.
Chapter 5
I. "Nation" in this chapter is used to denote both political entities (for the most
part kingdoms) and peoples who identified themselves as forming a linguistic or cul­
tural unity. Although the modern terms "nation-state" and "nationalism" make the
use of "nation" in connection with the Middle Ages tricky if not dangerous (as noted
by Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, pp. 252-53), its use to describe political or
linguistic collectivities is not anachronistic, for "nation" was a medieval concept and
word. See also Szucs, '"Nationalitat' und 'Nationalbewusstsein' im Mittelalter," in his
Nation und Geschichte, pp. 163-243.
2. In theory the state might simply deny internal differences of status and treat
the nation as an egalitarian community. In the sixteenth century all Basques were rec­
ognized by the Spanish crown as having a legitimate claim to noble status. (Monreal,
"Annotations Regarding Basque Traditional Political Thought," pp. 33-34). But this
approach would hardly suffice for larger regions with servile populations.
3. Goldberg, "Popular Revolt," p. 471; Bartlett, Making ofEurope, pp. 214-17;
Setton, Catalan Domination ofAthens, pp. 248-57.
4. Bartlett, Making ofEurope, pp. 197-242. Bartlett describes what he considers
Notes to Chapter 5 341
to be problems of medieval European "race relations." On the dangers of the concept
of race applied to conquests within Europe, see Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communi­
ties, p. 255.
5. Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject ofHistory, pp. 266-70.
6. C. Hill, "Norman Yoke"; Faith, "'Great Rumour' of 1377."
7. Grafton, "Higher Criticism Ancient and Modern"; Borchardt, GermanAntiq-
uity in Renaissance Myth.
8. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
9. Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983).
10. Reynolds, "Medieval Origines Gentium," pp. 375-90.
n. Coll i Alentorn, "La llegenda d'Otger Catal6"; idem, Guifte el Pilos; Bisson,
"Rise of Catalonia."
12. Linehan, History and the Historians.
13. Klaniczay, "Paradoxes of Royal Sainthood."
14. Beaune, Birth ofan Ideology; Spiegel, Romancing the Past.
15. Tate, "Mythology in Spanish Historiography." The idea of Tubal as the
founder of Iberia was adopted from Josephus via Saint Ambrose and Isidore of Seville
and put into peninsular circulation by Ximenez de Rada in the thirteenth century.
16. Mannyng, Chronicle, pt. 1, vv. 261-428 (pp. 9r101).
17. Coll i Alentorn, "La llegenda d'Otger Catal6," pp. 39-40.
18. Spiegel, Romancing the Past, pp. 55-151.
19. On the importance of vigor and controlled savagery, see Bartlett, Making of
Europe, pp. 85-105.
20. Of course, when exalting the ruler's authority, mythography could combine
heroism and constitutionalism, as in the account of the origins of the Catalan he­
raldic symbol, consisting of four red bars on a yellow ground. This symbol suppos­
edly originated when the emperor Louis the Pious traced it in blood as a symbol of
heroism and legitimacy, having dipped his fingers in a wound that Count Guifre had
suffered while in the emperor's service. See Udina i Martorell, "En torno a la leyenda
de las 'Barras' catalanes"; Fluvia, Els quatre pals.
21. See below, Chapter 8.
22. Combarieu, "Image et representation du vilain," p. 16. In Germany the exis­
tence of peasant soldiers and servile knights gave rise to propaganda against rustics
becoming knights, not necessarily because they were physically incapable or cowardly
but because they lacked chivalric character.
23. The Pseudo-Turpin formed part of the Liber Sancti Jacobi, the best-known
version of which is the Codex Calixtinus at Santiago de Compostela. The Codex also
contains the pilgrims' guide to Santiago along with liturgical and miracle texts con­
nected with the relics of Saint James. As a separate work, the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle
would enjoy great popularity in Latin and in vernacular languages, and consequently
it survives in several hundred manuscripts. In general, see Spiegel, Romancing the
Past, pp. 55-98.
24. The Latin Descriptio, probably written at Saint-Denis between 1080 and
 Notes to Chapter 5 342
rn95, is discussed in Rauschen, Die Legende Karls des Grossen, pp. 97-102, and edited
on pp. rn3-25. T he passage concerning the penalties for failure to accompany Charle­
magne is on p. rn8.
25. Old French Johannes; Walpole, "Charlemagne's Journey to the East." See
Spiegel, Romancing the Past, p. 71.
26. Old French Johannes, p. 143, especially lines 5-8: "II manda et commenda par
tote France que tuit cil qui serf erent de lor chars par les mauveses costums des
seignors, fussent franc permenablement, et il et lor ligniee, cele qui ert presente et a
venir." (Spiegel, Romancing the Past, p. 86, renders this as follows: "He directed and
commanded throughout all France that all those who were serfs in their persons on
account of the evil customs of lords should be free in perpetuity, they and their line,
both in the present and to come.") A similar passage appears in other versions of
Pseudo-Turpin: Anglo-Norman Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle of William de Briane n.372-81;
Anonymous Old French Translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle 9.3-9 (p. 49); Le
Turpin franfais, dit le Turpin I 11.4-n (pp. 1r14).
27. Walpole, "Charlemagne's Journey," p. 446: "Cil qui porroient armes porter
et avec lui n'iroient, devroient .iiii. deniers de lor chief a toz jors mais, et il et lor lig­
niee, celle qui ert presente et a venir." (Spiegel, Romancing the Past, p. 85, translates as
follows: "those who were able to bear arms and would not go with him owed four
pennies a head henceforth, they and their line, both in the present and to come.")
28. Old French Johannes, p. 132, lines n-12: "qui n'i iroit, il seroit sers, et il et si
oir, a toz jorz." (Spiegel, Romancing the Past, p. 86, translates as follows: "he who will
not go shall be a serf, both he and his heirs forever.")
29. Discussed by Lemaitre, "Le refus de service d'ost," pp. 231-32.
30. Gui de Bourgogne, vv. 177-80 (p. 6):
Mais une chose voil que sachem de verte
Par la foi que doi sainte crestiente
II et touz ses linages sera sers rachete
Touz les jors de sa vie sera il sers dame.
31. Ibid., vv. 181-84 (pp. 6-7).
32. Lemaitre, "Le refus de service d' ost," pp. 232-35.
33. Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait, Redaction A, fol. 140 (1: 353):
Et plusseur qui le contredirent,
Que il n'i vostrent pas aler,
Iceulz fist il cers apeller,
Eus et leur anfans ansugant.
Encor I' ot l' en maintenant,
A Paris en a un millier.
34. Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait, sixieme branche, vv. 37430-521 (2: 155-56).
35. Ibid., vv. 37545-47 (p. 156): "Dist le roy: 'Cilz ont bien ouvre, / Et par Dieu
bien s'i sont prouve.' / Et pour cest mot, Prouvins ot nom.''
Notes to Chapter 5 343
36. Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, chap. 45, par. 1438 (2: 226-27); par.
1453 (2: 235-36).
37. Quoted in M. Bloch, Rois et serfi, p. 132: "Comme selonc le droit de nature
chascun doie nestre franc et par aucuns usages ou coustumes qui de grant anciennete
ont este encredites et gardees jusques ci en nostre reaume, et par aventure par le mes­
fair de leurs predecesseurs moult de personnes de nostre commun peuple soient
encheues en lyans de servitutes et de diverses condicions, qui moult nous desplet,
nous, considerans que nostre reaume est dit et nomme le royaume des Frans.''
38. Digest (Codex Justinianus) 4.2.22, 37.1.13, 48.1.2, 48.13.6. See the discussion of
this in Szucs, "T heoretical Elements," pp. 268-69.
39. On heribannum, see the Capitulary ofBoulogne (8n), in MGH Legum, sec.
2, Regum Francorum, 1 p. 166. On lantweri, see Contamine, �r in the Middle Ages,
p. 24; and Ganshof, Frankish Institutions, pp. 60, 153.
40. Ganshof, Frankish Institutions, p. 68.
41. M. Bloch, Rois et serfi, p. 144.
42. For King Joan I's request that the pope abolish the "bad customs" character­
istic of servitude, see Barcelona, Ar:xiu de la Corona d'Arag6, Cancelleria, Registre
1968, fol. nr; the inquiry concerning the end of servitude ("haiam entes qual temps
de la servitut. . . . segons les Chroniques, es ja passat") is in Barcelona, Ar:xiu de la
Corona d'Arag6, Cancelleria, Registre 1955, fols. 105v-rn6r.
43. On French emancipation, see M. Bloch, Rois et serfi, pp. 40-70, 94-172; and
William Jordan, From Servitude to Freedom.
44. Kelley, "Clio and the Lawyers."
45. Freedman, "Catalan Lawyers," especially pp. 304-14; idem, "Cowardice,
Heroism." T hese articles are reprinted in Freedman, Church, Law and Society.
46. Barcelona, Ar:xiu de la Corona d'Arag6, MS Ripoll 99. See Hmel, "Arnal­
dus de Monte und der Liber S. Jacobi," pp. 14r59.
47. Gesta comitum Barcinonensium, pp. 3-6. On parallels with Frankish legends
see Aurell, Les noces du comte, pp. 507-13.
48. Zimmermann, "La prise de Barcelone."
49. Paris, Bibliotheque National, MS Espagnol 13, fols. 76v-77r.
50. However, it was possible elsewhere to depreciate Charlemagne's efforts in
Spain. Rodrigo Ximenes de Rada, archbishop of Toledo, in his Historia de rebus His­
panie (written in the mid-thirteenth century), bk. 4, chap. IO (CC 72, pp. 126-28),
minimized the extent of Charlemagne's conquests. Radulphus Niger, in his Moralia
Regum 19.14, accused Charlemagne of making an unfavorable treaty with the Moors;
for this see Bue, "Exegese et pensee politique," p. 150.
51. El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenw, MS d.Il.I8, fols. 94r-93v (the fo­
liation is backwards), edited in Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude, p. 226.
52. El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo, MS d.II.18, fol. 93v: "Ex post
venerunt Christiani et conquistabant istam terram et, cum continue preliabant con­
tra Saracenos, petierunt secrete adiutorium ab istis Christianis captiuis, qui timore
Saracenorum nullum sufragium voluerunt dare Christianis."
 Notes to Chapter 5 344
53. Ibid., fol. 93v: "Et Christiani per gratiam Iesu Christi totam terram conquis­
tarunt et aplicarunt fi.dey Christiane, et multi fuerunt in oppinione quod interfi.cerent
Christianos istos sic captiuos ex eo quare tempore conquiste nullum sufragium
voluerunt prestare Christianis. Alii tenuerunt quod illesi remanerent et sub Christia­
nis sicuti erant tempore Saracenorum, et quod redimerent se et cultiuarent et alia
seruicia facerent Christianis sicuti facere solebant Saracenis et sic fuerunt a morte
liberati."
54. Digest (Codex fus.tinianus) 41.5.7, attributed to Gaius.
55. Ibid.! 1.5.4 (Florentius): "Servi ex eo appellati sunt, quod imperatores cap­
tivos vendere ac per hoc servare nee occidere solent."
56. Bresc, 'Tesclave clans le monde mediterraneen," pp. 89-91; Verlinden,
L'esclavage dans !'Europe medievale 1: 249-545.
57. El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo d.ILI8, fols. 121v-u4r (the folia­
tion is backwards), especially fols. u8r-u7V.
58. Ibid., fol. u8r (edited in Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude): "Christiani
captiui, dubitantes quis eorum obtineret triumphum, noluerunt prebere auxilium
regi Karolo nee Christianis. Deo duce Christiani deuincerunt Saracenos [fol. II7V] et
hanc terram subdiderunt fidey Catholice. Et facta subieccione huius patrie, dixerunt
Christiani regi ut interficeret Christianos captiuos eo quia cum eo noluerunt debel­
lare pro fide. Rex deliberauit habito consilio, cum ipse tenuit gentes armigeras et non
poterant cultiuare, ut sinerent illos captiuos Christianos uiuere et ut captiui, sicut an­
tea faciebant apud infideles, uiuerent et nunch et in perpetuum apud Christianos."
59. Freedman, "Cowardice, Heroism," pp. 10-u.
60. Tomich, Historias e conquestas, fol. 18v.
61. Joan de Socarrats, loannis de Socarratis, p. 501.
62. Coll i Alentorn, "La llegenda d'Otger Catal6."
63. Tomich, Historias e conquestas, fols. ur-18v.
64. Cited in Coll i Alentorn, "La llegenda d'Otger Catal6," p. 27: "E aquest es lo
principi de les llibertats de Cathalunya, car no principia en homens rustichs ni aple­
gadis:os, sin6 en alts e valerosos."
65. Simon ofKeza,Gesta Hungarorum, pp. 147-48.
66. Macartney, Studies on the Earliest Hungarian Historical Sources.
67. I have relied on Szucs, "Theoretical Elements," and R. Hoffmann, "Out­
siders by Birth and Blood."
68. Das Nibelungenlied, from chap. 21 ("Wie Kriemhilt zuo den Hiunen fuor"),
on pp. 208f£
69. Szucs, "Die Nation in historischer Sicht und der nationale Aspekt der
Geschichte," in his Nation und Geschichte, pp. 85-86.
70. Simon of Keza, Gesta Hungarorum, chap. 4, p. 144.
71. Sz{ics, "Theoretical Elements," pp. 258-59.
72. Simon of Keza, Gesta Hungarorum, chap. 7, pp. 147-48: "Quicunque ergo
edictum contempsisset praetendere non valens rationem, lex Scitica per medium cul­
tro huius detruncabat, vel exponi in causas desperatas, aut detrudi in communium
Notes to Chapter 5 345
servitutem." On the meaning of "exponi in causas desperatas," a Roman-law formu­
lation, see Sz{ics, "Theoretical Elements," pp. 268-69.
73. Simon of Keza, Gesta Hungarorum, chap. 7, p. 148: "Vitia itaque et excessus
huius unum Hungarum ab alio separavit, alias cum unus pater et una mater omnes
Hungaros procreaverit, quorum unus nobilis, alter innobilis diceretur, nisi victus per
tales casus criminis haberetur." I reproduce the translation given by R. Hoffmann,
"Outsiders by Birth and Blood," p. 15.
74. Szucs, "Theoretical Elements," pp. 251-52.
75. Ibid., pp. 268-69.
76. Ibid., pp. 278-80.
77. Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle, facsimile fol. 4v.
78. Thur6czy, Chronica Hungarorum, vol. 1, chap. 12, pp. 33-34.
79. Ibid., p. 33: "£dictum etiam fuit, quod, cum res communitatem equa sorte
tangentes occurrerent, aut generalis expeditio exercitus incumberet, ut mucro sangui­
nis aspergine tinctus media Hunorum per habitacula castraque deferetur."
80. Ibid., p. 34: "Hee consuetudo inter Hunos sive Hungaros usque ad tempora
Geyse duds filii duds Toxon filii Arpad inviolabiliter extitit observata, et multos gen­
eratione de hac perpetuam redegit in rusticitatem."
81. Ibid, p. 34: "Nam cum una et eadem fuerint generatio, et a quondam Hunor
et Magor unanimiter processerint, aliter fieri nequivisset, ut alter dominus, alter
servus vel rusticus effici potuisset." The translation is from R. Hoffmann, "Outsiders
by Birth and Blood," p. 17.
82. Bak, Konigtum und Stiinde, pp. 62-79. For the historiography of the Doc­
trine and its polemical uses in the modern era, see Vardy, Modern Hungarian Histo­
riography, pp. 179 -89.
83. For the capitulation of Vladislav II (1490), see in Bak, Konigtum und Stiinde,
pp. 152-54.
84. On the Hungarian uprising see below, Chapter II, pp. 269-80.
85. The u52 peace ordinance (Reichslandfrieden) of Frederick I included provi­
sions against rustics' carrying lances, swords, or "weapons" (arma) generally; see
Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 83, p. 222. Also see below,
Chapter 8.
86. Monumenta rusticorum in Hungaria rebellium, no. 202, Prologue, p. 148:
"considerassemusque pericula omnia, que hucusque huic Hungarie regno nostro ab
infidelibus hostibus illata sunt, ruinas quoque et desolaciones castrorum finitimorum
atque eciam tumultum illum nefandissimum, quern plebs rustica . . . crudelitate
concitaverat."
87. Ibid., Article 14, p. 260: "Item quamquam omnes rustici, qui adversus domi­
nos eorum naturales insurrexerunt, tanquam proditores capitali pena sint plectendi."
88. Ibid., p. 260: "per hanc infidelitatis ipsorum notam amissa libertate eorum,
qua de loco in locum recedendi habebant facultatem, dominis ipsorum terrestribus
mera et perpetua rusticitate sint subiecti"; cited in R. Hoffmann, "Outsiders by Birth
and Blood," p. 33 n. 64.
 Notes to Chapters 346
89. Ibid., Article 47, pp. 270-71: "ut nunquam de cetero de illorum progenie
iudex aut iuratus civis vel villicus in medio aliorum rusticorum aliquis eligatur
nemoque in curia principis vel dominorum ac nobilium ex eis famulari unquam pos:.,
sit et nullus eorum ad aliquem honorem promoveatur, sed tanquam maledicte gen­
eracionis iugo perpetue servitutis et rusticitate subiecti reatus ipsorum penam lugeant
sine fine."
90. Werblfczy lstvdn Hdrmaskonyve pt. 1, tit. 3, pp. 56, 58.
91. Ibid., pt. 3, tit. 25, p. 406: "hujusmodi tamen ipsorum libertatem superiore
hac aestate, propter seditionem, et tumultuarium eorum adversus universam nobili­
tatem, sub nomine cruciatae, ductu cujusdam sceleratissimi latronis Georgii Zekel
appellati insurrectionem ex eoque notam perpetuae infidelitatis eorum incursionem,
penitus amiserunt. Dominisque ipsorum terrestribus, mera et perpetua jam rustici­
tate subjecti sunt."
92. Ibid., pt. 1, tit. 3, p. 58: "Haec sanctio plurimos Hungarorum (ut praefertur)
plebae perhibetur effecisse conditionis. Nam cum una et eadem de generatione a
quondam scilicet Hunnor et Magor unanimiter processerint, aliter fieri nequivisset,
ut hie dominus, ille servus, hie nobilis, ille ignobilis, et rusticus efficeretur."
93. Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, p. 89.
94. Bak, Konigtum und Stiinde, pp. 74-79.
95. Werblfczy lstvdn Hdrmaskonyve, pt. 1, tit. 4, p. 228: "Nomine autem, et appel­
latione populi, hoc in loco intellige: solummodo dominos praelatos, barones, et alios
magnates, atque quoslibet nobiles; sed non ignobiles."
96. Szekely, "Le passage a l'economie."
97. Roger of Wendover, Flowers ofHistory, p. 66: "et quod nullus remaneat, qui
arma portare possit, sub nomina culvertagii et perpetuae servitutis."
98. Two ofthe Saxon Chronicles Parallel p. 200.
99. Henry of Huntingdon, History ofthe English, p. 8.
100. Hanning, Vision ofHistory in Early Britain, pp. 44-62, 77-83.
IOI. Turville-Petre, "Politics and Poetry''; Moffat, "Sin, Conquest, Servitude";
Summerfield, "Bondage & Destres." I am grateful to Drs. Moffat and Summerfield for
sharing their work with me and helping me with this section.
102. Metrical Chronicle ofRobert of Gloucester, vv. 7498-7501 (2: 541).
103. Ibid., vv. 75or13 (pp. 541-42).
104. Castleford, Chronicle, vol. 2, bk. IO pt. 3, vv. 31,931-38 (p. 863).
105. Chronicle ofPierre de Langtoft1: 288-90.
106. Mannyng, Chronicle, pt. 2, vv. 139-41 (p. 490): "Sithen he & his haf had the
lond in heritage / that the Inglis haf so lad that thei lyue in seruage. / He sette the In­
glis to the thralle, that or was so fre." See also pt. 2, vv. 6317-18 (pp. 644-45), where
Edward I is quoted as saying: "For alle this thraldam that now on Inglond es. /
Thorgh Normans it cam, bondage & destres."
107. As pointed out by Summerfield, "Bondage & Destres."
108. Mannyng, Chronicle, pt. 2, vv. 617-21 (p. 529):
Notes to Chapter 6 347
this vision is yit to drede, think & gif gode kepe.
I trowe it is ouergone thorgh William conqueroure.
He com & slouh ilkone tho wikked men in stoure
& sette vs in seruage, of fredom felle the floure;
The Inglis borgh taliage lyue yit in sorow fulle soure.
(This vision is still to be dreaded, think on it well. I
say it happened through William the Conqueror.
He came and slew the wicked men in battle and re­
duced us to servitude, the flower of freedom fell.
The English still live in great sorrow because of tax­
ation.)
Ibid., vv. 1760-63 (p. 533):
that bondage, that brouht was ouer the se;
now ere thei in seruage, fulle fele that or was fre.
Our fredom that day for euer toke the leue;
for Harald it went away, his falshed did vs greue.
( . . . that bondage that was brought from over
the sea. Now they who formerly were free fell
into servitude. Our freedom departed that day
forever. Through Harold it went away; his false­
ness hurt us.)
109. Turville-Petre, "Politics and Poetry." Moffat takes issue with this view in
"Sin, Conquest, Servitude."
no. Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi SanctiAlbani, HistoriaAnglorum 1: 28-29.
III. See above, note 108 for this chapter. Tallage was levied on villeins, but Man­
nyng here is complaining about taxes paid by higher orders of society ("us"), liken­
ing them all to servile (oppressive) obligations.
n2. Dyer, "Memories of Freedom."
n3. Faith, '"Great Rumour' ofi377," pp. 43-48.
n4. Ibid., pp. 56-57.
n5. Walsingham, GestaAbbatumMonasterii SanctiAlbani, pp. 157-63. See Faith,
"Class Struggle in Fourteenth Century England."
Chapter6
I. Among the many studies of the harsh treatment of peasants in medieval texts
are Martini, Das Bauerntum, pp. 41-102, 135-213; Hi.igli, Der deutsche Bauer imMit­
telalter; Wunder, "Der dumme und der schlaue Bauer"; Merlini, Satira contro il vil­
lano; Feo, "Dal pius agricola," pp. 89-136, 206-23; Coulton, Medieval Village,
 Notes to Chapter 6 34 8
pp. 231-52; Galpin, Cortois and Vilain; Algazi, Herrengewalt; and Jonin, "La revision
d'un topos."
2. Cited in Galpin, Cortois and Vilain pp. 8-9. See also Ribard, Un menestra/ du
.xJ¼, siecle, Jean de Conde, p. n7.
3. "Des vilains ou des XXII manieries de vilains," especially pp. 249-55.
4. This "Peasant Catechism" is in a Munich manuscript signed by Georg Pren­
perger, a graduate of the University of Vienna, edited in Parodistische Texte, no. 7,
pp. 21-22.
5. Cited in Le Goff, Medieval Civilization, p. 300; and 'Specht, Poetry and the
Iconogrphy ofthe Peasant, p. 49. There is also a late-medieval version from northern
Italy (in Carmina medii aevi, p. 28), and another "declension" in the Prenperger satire
that emphasizes the blackness and bestial nature of the rustic (in Parodistische Texte,
p. 22).
6. Nykrog, Les fabliaux, especially pp. 105-7.
7. Galpin, Cortois and Vilain; Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois. Gravdal (pp. 13 and
mo) singles out Galpin as an example of over-literal social interpretation, which is
not completely fair since Galpin acknowledges (pp. rn-n) that villanie is a quality
opposed to courtesy more than an attribute of peasants, who tend to be peripheral in
the literature he considers.
8. Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois, pp. 6-14. See also Zumthor, "Intertextualite et
mouvance." The game-versus-lesson simile is from Nabakov as cited by Gravdal, p. 6.
9. Bonnassie, "Marc Bloch, Historian of Servitude," in his From Slavery to Feu­
dalism, p. 330.
IO. Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois, pp. 81-n2, especially 97-100.
II. The best-known edition is Die Lieder Neidharts, edited by Edmund Weissner,
2nd ed., which embodies a restrictive definition of what poems are to be included
within the genuine Neidhart corpus. This edition is supplemented by Die Berliner
Neidhart -Handschrift c. I am indebted to Dr. Elizabeth I. Traverse for her advice and
help with the poems ofNeidhart. I have profited greatly from her book Peasants, Sea­
som and Werltsueze. Also offundamental importance are Simon, Neidhart von Reuen­
tal; and Schweikle, Neidhart.
12. On the complicated questions about the manuscripts of Neidhart and about
which of the poems attributed to him are genuine, see Traverse, Peasants, Seasons and
Werltsueze, pp. 50-121; H. Becker, Die Neidharte; Bennewitz-Behr, Original und
Rezeption; and Beyschlag, "Neidhart von Reuental in neuer Sicht." On the violence
ofthe peasants, see Traverse, "Hie saget Neidhart."
13. Neidhartspiele and Die Historien des Neithart Fuchs.
14. On Neidhart's reputation as the opponent ofthe peasantry, see Jost, Bauern­
feindlichkeit, pp. 46-55. See also Margetts, "Das Bauerntum in der Literatur"; Heald,
"Peasant in Mediaeval German Literature," p. 195; and Simon, "Neidharte and Neid­
hartianer," especially pp. 183-84.
15. Scornfor the World, bk. 2, vv. 25r59 (p. 90).
16. "Alphabeto disposto contra i villani" (dating from ca. 1500), cited in Carmina
Notes to Chapter 6 349
medii aevi, p. 27: "Christo fo da villan crucifico, I e stagom sempre in pioza, in vento
e in neve, / perche havom fato cosi gran pecco." (Three other Italian examples of this
theme are given in Merlini, Satira contro il villano, p. 3 n. I.) "De natura rusticorum,"
a fourteenth-century Italian poem, also in Carmina medii aevi, vv. 86-90 (p. 37):
Hi non curant de doctrina,
tegunt se pelle asinina:
intus vero sunt lupina,
verba latrant ut canina,
infelices rustici.
17. Chretien de Troyes, Le chevalier au lion (Yvain),v. 286 (p. 9): "Uns vileins, qui
resanbloit Mor."
18. Mellinkoff, Outcasts 1: 26, 149, 202, 231.
19. Thesaurus lingue latinae, vol. IO, pt. l (Leipzig, 1982), pp. 81-84.
20. Martin ofBraga, "De correctione rusticorum."
21. P. Brown, Cult ofthe Saints, pp. II9-20; idem, "Relics and Social Status in the
Age of Gregory ofTours," pp. 230-33; Kobler, '"Bauer' (agricola, colonus, rusticus)."
22. Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages, p. 14.
23. Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture, pp. 92-93.
24. Kobler, '"Bauer' (agricola, colonus, rusticus)," pp. 239-40.
25. Burchard ofWorms, Decretum, bk. IO (PL 140: 831-54).
26. Schmitt, Holy Greyhound; Ginzburg, Night Battles; idem, Ecstasies.
27. Cited in Coulton, Medieval Village, pp. 265-66.
28. Galpin, Cortois and Vilain, p. 84.
29. Nouveau Recueil complet desfabliaux, no. 39 (5: 34).
30. Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis 1.7 (pp. 99-100): "Nee tamen mirum, si
quidam rusticus, ab omni scientia alienus prorsusque totius divine virtutis inexper­
tus, quodque deterius est, sinistre mentis pravitate falsus, tam grave erroris periculum
incurrit." The translation is Sheingorn's in Book ofSainte Foy, p. 64.
31. Cited in Medeiros, Jacques et chroniqueurs, p. 51.
32. L'Archivo Capito/are della Cattedral di Mantova, p. 63. I thank Duane Osheim
ofthe University of Virginia for this reference.
33. Camille, "Labouring for the Lord," and his forthcoming book, A Mirror in
Parchment?
34. Li romans de Claris et Laris, vv. 8371-84 (BLVS 169, pp. 226-27):
Li vilain sont de laide forme,
Ainc si tres laide ne vit home;
Chaucuns a .xv. pies de granz,
En auques resemblent jaianz,
Mes trop sont de laide maniere;
Boc;u sont devant et derriere,
Les cheveus noirs comme arremenz,
 Notes to Chapter 6 350
Les ongles grandes con serpenz,
Les mentons demi pie de grant,
Lors euls resemblent feu ardant,
Denz de senglier et nes de chat,
Hure de lou, qui se combat,
Trop resembloient bien deable,
Tant sont fier et espoantable.
(The vilains are ugly in form,
more ugly than anyone has ever
seen. Each one is fifteen feet tall
and in some ways they resemble
giants, but of a very ugly sort.
A paunch in front, and hump­
backed, hair black like ink, with
nails long as serpents, their chins
half a foot wide, their eyes resem­
ble burning fire, teeth of wild
boar, nose like a cat's, snout like
a ravening wol£ They are very
much like devils, ferocious and
frightening.)
35. Chretien de Troyes, Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), vv. 286-305 (pp. 9-10):
Uns vileins, qui resanbloit Mor,
leiz et hideus a demesure,
einsi tres leide criature
qu' an ne porroit dire de boche,
assis s' estoit sor une c;:oche,
une grant mac;:ue en sa main.
Je m' aprochai vers le vilain,
si vi qu'il ot grosse la teste
plus que roncins ne autre beste,
chevox mechiez et front pele,
s' ot pres de deus espanz de le,
oroilles mossues et granz
autiex com a uns olifanz,
les sorcix granz et le vis plat,
ialz de c;:uete, et nes de chat,
boche fandue come lous,
danz de sengler aguz et rous,
barbe rosse, grenons tortiz,
et la manton aers au piz,
longe eschine torte et boc;:ue
Notes to Chapter 6 351
( . . . a lowborn creature, black as a
Moor [literally "resembled a
Moor"], huge and hideously ugly­
indeed, so incredibly awful that
there are no words to describe
him-and holding a great club in
his hand. And riding toward this
fellow I saw that his head was big­
ger than a packhorse's, or any other
beast's. His hair was tufted, and his
forehead bald and wide as two out­
spread hands, his ears all mossy and
immense, exactly like an elephant's,
his eyebrows huge, his face as if
flattened. He had eyes like an owl,
a nose like a cat, and jaws split like
a wolf's, with a boar's wild teeth, all
yellowed, and his beard was black,
his moustache crooked. His chin
met his chest, his backbone long
and twisted. [ Yvain, the Knight of
the Lion, pp. n-12])
36. Aucassin et Nicolette, chap. 24, p. n4: "Grans estoit et mervellex et lais et
hidex. II avoit une grande hure plus noire qu'une carbouclee et avoit plus de planne
paume entre deus ex, et avoit unes grandes joes et un grandisme nes plat et unes
grans narines lees et unes grosses levres plus rouges d'une carbounee et uns grans
dens gaunes et lais." (He was tall and weird and alarmingly ugly. He had a great mop
of a head as black as smut with eyes set a palm's width apart, broad cheeks, an enor­
mous flat nose with cavernous nostrils, thick lips redder than underdone meat and
great, ugly yellow teeth. [ ':Aucassin and Nicolette" and Other Tales, p. 45.])
37. Historia Gaufredi, p. 184. See Bisson, "Feudal Revolution," pp. 34-35.
38. Rigord, Gesta Phillippi 1.3 (1: 10-n). Owen, "The Prince and the Churl," pp.
141-44, argues that this story is probably derived from Yvain.
39. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 1, fol. Ir: "Qui quidem homo vix
et indignanter eleuato dorso montoso. Recuruoque gipposo, vultuque swalido tortu­
oso necnon aspectu stolido, pariter et asinino, fronte rugosa sulcuta, barba hyspida,
capito pilos nodosis et cannis cirrosis comato, lippis oculis." The rustic notes (fol. 1v)
that the apostles and prophets, too, were untaught; that Barlaam 's ass could talk; and
that a bull warned the city of Rome (according to Valerius Maximus). On Hemmerli
and this text, see Hieronymous, "Felix Hemmerli und Sebastian Brant."
40. Le Goff, "Le desert-foret dans !'Occident medieval"; and idem, "Levi-Strauss
en Broceliande." English versions of these essays appear in Le Goff, Medieval Imagi­
nation, pp. 47-59 and 10r31.
 Notes to Chapter 6 352 Notes to Chapter 6 353

41. Chretien de Troyes, Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), vv. 326-30 (p. n): 53. As translated in Coulton, Medieval Village, p. 134.
54. Bonjour et al., Short History ofSwitzerland, p. 106.
je Ii dis: "Va, car me di 55. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 33, fol. 131v.
se tu es boene chose ou non." 56. Gower, Vox clamantis, bk. 1, pp. 20-81.
Et il me dist qu'il ert uns horn. 57. Ibid., bk. 1, vv. 2093-96 (p. 79).
"Quiez horn ies tu?-Tex con tu voiz; 58. Eupolemius, trans. Ziolkowski, p. 32.
si ne sui autres nul foiz. 59. For works concerning wild men, see below, Chapter 7, note 5.
On this exchange see the cogent remarks of Peter Haidu in his essay "Romance.". 60. Combarieu, "Image et representation du vilain," p. n; Hemmerli, De nobil­
itate et rusticitate, cap. 1, fol. Ir.
42. Historia Gaufredi, p. 184: "Quam videns liberalis Gaufredus, non ut pau­
perem dives contempsit, sed, ut homo hominem recognoscens, in unius miseria com­ 61. Li Romans de Garin le Loherain 2: 152-53, cited in Le Goff, Medieval Civi-
liza.tion, p. 300:
munem hominum calamitatem deplorat, elogium illud primi hominis remeniscens:
'In sudore,' inquit, 'vultus tui vesceris pane tuo."' Gros out les bras et les membres fornis,
43. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 1, fol. Ir. Entre deus iaus plaine paume accompli;
44. Ibid., cap. 34, fol. 141v. Larges epaules et si out gros le pis;
45. La chanson de Roland, vv. 1631-40 (1: 175); vv. 1913-34 (1: 188-89). Hirecies fu, s' ot charbonne le vis,
46. Ibid., vv. 24-61 (1: 94-95). Ne fu laves de six mois accomplis,
47. Ibid., vv. 894-99 (1: 138): Ne n' i ot aive se du ciel ne chai.
Uns amurafles i ad de Balaguez, 62. Alvarus Pelagius, De planctu ecclesiae, fol. 147r, as translated in Coulton, Me­
Cors ad mult gent et le vis fier e cler. dieval Village, p. 244.
Puis que il est sur sun cheval muntet, 63. Sanchez de Arevalo, Speculum vitae humanae 1.21, as translated in Coulton,
Mult se fait fiers de des armes porter; Medieval Village, app. 31, pp. 517-19.
De vasselage est il hen alosez: 64. "Le despit au vilain," vv. 39-42 (in Jongleurs et trouveres, p. 108), cited in
Fust chresfiens, asez oust barnet. Braet, ''A Thing Most Brutish," p. 196.
(An emir is there from Balaguer. 65. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Paintingi: 66.
His body is very handsome and his face fierce and fair. 66. J. Alexander, "Labeur and Paresse," pp. 438-39.
When he is mounted on his horse, 67. Ibid., pp. 439-45.
He bears his arms with great ferocity. 68. Specht, Poetry and the Iconography ofthe Peasant, pp. 51-54. Specht considers
He is well known for his courage; the possibility that the artist sympathized with the plight of the peasantry, but thinks
Had he been a Christian, he would have been a worthy baron. the bent posture more likely to be the result of a limitation of the artist's technical
[Song ofRoland, p. 57]} skill. The illustration of Virgo shows two young women picking flowers, a scene in
which coercion is "unthinkable," but their posture is contrasted with the graceful at­
48. On Vezelay, see Male, L'art religieux, pp. 326-32. On the Plinian races and
titude of three differently clothed young women and a man who looks on. The issue
the problem of their humanity see J. Friedman, Monstrous Races.
is not just coercion but nature; the posture is awkward because the people are inured
49. See Bhabha, "Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism," to exhausting and lowly tasks.
pp. 202-4, and, for his critique of Edward Said's "Orientalist" idea of alterity, pp.
69. "Le conte des vilains de Verson," pp. 668-73. The poem has also been edited
199-201.
by Lechaude d'Anisy, "Recherches historiques," pp. 105-12; and by Hunger, Histoire
50. "Du prestre et du chevalier," cited in Falk, Etude sociale, p. 83; and edited in
de verson, pp. 28-35. I am grateful to Cassandra Potts, of Middlebury College, and
Recueil general et complete des fabliaux 2: 34: "Maleureus de toute part/ Hideus
Larry Crist, of Vanderbilt University, for help with this document. It has recently
comme leu ou lupart/Qui ne savent entre gens estre."
been discussed briefly in Arnoux, "Classe agricole," pp. 35-37, and in a more detailed
51. Cited in Feo, "Dal pius agricola," pp. 105-6.
and nuanced way in Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, pp. 216-26.
52. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. u7, p. 312: "et ferino
70. "Le conte des vilains de Verson," v. IO (p. 668): "Eus sunt plus cuverz que
more, feris bestiis crudelius sevientes."
 Notes to Chapter 6 354 Notes to Chapter 6 355

mastins"; vv. 230-32 (p. 673): "Sire, sachez quel firmament/Je ne sai pluskuverte there, in an inn, there was an
gent/ Que sunt les vileins de Verson." ass. From behind he made a
71. Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, p. 221. sound, as loud as thunder.
72. Ibid., pp. 218-19. From that evil wind, was
73. Ibid., p. 219, with regard to the arbitrary calculation of the proportions of born the stinking peasant.)
harvest due to the lord: "Peut-on imaginer un tel cynisme d'exposition, s'il s'agit 79. Ibid., vv. 145-285 (pp. 22-24).
d'une description de la realite de !'exploitation monastique?" 80. Alberti, Family in Renaissance Florence, pp. 189-90.
74. "Leconte des vilains de Verson," vv. 159-74 (pp. 671-72): 81. Proverbia sententiaeque, no. 27026 (4: 641): "Rusticus est quasi bos, nisi quod
Beim me conta Rogier Ade, sua cornua desunt." A German rhyming version is cited in Ebner, "Der Bauer," p. 95:
Que honte ait vilein eschape: "Der Bauer ist an Ochsen statt, nur dass er keine Horner hat." The proverb is also
Se vilain sa fille marie cited as a late-medieval folksong by Ranke, "Agrarische und bauerliche Denk-und
Pars de dehors la seignorie Verhaltensweisen im Mittelalter," p. 212.
Le seignor en a le culage: 82. Proverbia sententiaeque, no. 27016 (4: 640): "Rusticus ac asinus, nux, hec tria
iii sols en a del mariage; connumerata,/Non faciunt fructum, fuerint nisi combaculata."
iii sols en a reison por quei, 83. Ibid., no. 26997 (4: 637): "Rusticus gens est optima flens et pessima ridens."
Sire, je l'vos di par ma fei: Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 32, fol. 124r, gives the proverb as "rustica
Jadis avint que le vilein gens, optima flens, pessima gaudens." On this and similar proverbs, see Algazi, Her­
Bailout sa fille par la mein rengewalt, pp. 199-2rn.
Et la livrout ason seignor, 84. "Oignez vilain, il vous poindra; poignez vilain il vous oindra," cited in Coul­
Jane fust de si grant valor ton, Medieval Village, p. 234. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 32, fol. 124r,
A faire idonc sa volonte, gives the same proverb in Latin. A version is also given by Rabelais in Gargantua,
Ancies qu'il eust el done chap. 22.
Rente, chatel OU heritage 85. Francese Eiximenis, Lo Crestia, bk. 12, excerpted in Francese Eiximenis, la so­
Por consentir le mariage. cietat catalana, p. 59: "e del homens servills qui james no es poden res inclinar, sin6
ab for<_;:a e ab mal. Per tal, diu que aquests no son apellats homens mas besties. E, per
75. Ibid., v. 200 (p. 672): "Itant au vilenage apent." ra6 d'a<_;:o, los deu horn tractar aixi com abesties feres e cruels, que doma horn ab ba­
76. Arnoux, "Classe agricole," pp. 35-60; Musser, "Reflexions autour du prob­ timents, e ab fam, e ab clausures forts e terribles."
leme de l'esclavage." 86. Ruprecht von Freising, Preisinger Rechtsbuch, chap. 46, p. 52: "und di maister
77. Meyer, "Dit sur les vilains," pp. 14-28 (the original is given on pp. 20-24). di ehalten in vorcht haben muezzen oder si worchten nimmer nicht." This edition by
78. Ibid., vv. 75-128 (pp. 21-22), esp. vv. 80-88: Claussen, based on MS A (Munich, Stadtarchiv, Codex urbis Monacensis 1), repre­
sents the original text better than the edition of Georg Ludwig von Maurer (Das
Como fo l'istoria Stadt- und das Landrechtsbuch Ruprechts von Freising). Maurer used five manuscripts
De soa natevita, in order to show the influence of the Schwabenspiegel on later versions of the law­
Voyo che mi intenda. book This is significant because the reworked Preisinger Rechtsbuch took from the
La zoxo, in uno hostero, Schwabenspiegel its condemnation of servitude (c. 197, pp. 213-14 in Maurer's edi­
Si era un somero: tion), and left out, among other things, the passage about the master's right to flog
De dre si fe un sono his ser£
Si grande como un tono. 87. Hiigli, Der deutsche Bauer im Mittelalter, p. 3.
De quel malvaxio vento 88. Reimchronik des Appenzellerkrieges, vv. 1496-98 (p. 47): "doch muoss mans
Nasce el vilan puzolento. ettwen stucken/ das mans dester bas mug bucken, I so muossentz dester fiiro
(Thus was the history of his buwen." (But one must silence him in order better to force him to farm.)
nativity, you who under­ 89. "Zwei Flugschriften aus der Zeit Maximilians I," vv. 373-77 (p. 178):
stand what I mean. Down
 Notes to Chapter 6 3 57
Notes to Chapter 6 356

Also solt man dich all iar straffen rn6. Nouveau Recueil complet desfabliaux, no. 55, 5: 368-70. Very similar is a Latin
wie ain felber mit den waffen poem, "The Rustic and Pluto," cited in Merlini,· Satira contro ii villano, pp. 8o-8I.
All ia r wirt gestimlet, blut und gar rn7. R. H. Bloch, Scandal pp. 22-rno, especially p. 51.
zeiar wirt er nun <lester fruchtbar; rn8. Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux, no. 92, 8: 2IJ-I4, cited in Jonin, "La
revision d'un topos," p. I8o. The same story appears in an exemplum
by Jacques de
Sein wachsen wurd hinren das holtz.
Vitry, in his Exempla or Illustrative Stories, no. I9I, p. 80. More than ten versions are
(Thus you should be punished cited in F rederic C. Tubach, Index exemplorum: A Handbook ofMedieval Religious
every year, like a willow tree, Tales, no. 3645, p. 282.
trimmed with knives, bleeding, and rn9. Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux, no. 57, 6: 3I-32, cited in R. H. Bloch,
in a while it will be fruitful, the Scandal pp. 52-53.
wood will grow sufficiently.) no. Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux, no. IO, 2: 204-I4. Cited in R. H.
90. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 32, fol. I24r: "Ex quibus quidem Bloch, Scandal pp. 50-51.
experientia doctissimi congruenter arguunt immo arbitrati fuerunt reipublice fore m. "Audigier et la chanson de geste," pp. 5u-26. See also Gravdal, Vilain and
salutiferum salutare ac salutis humane et insuper rusticitatis et ruralitatis et ruris salu­ Courtois, pp. 5I-80.
berrimum ritissimum et congruissimum vitale remedium dum rusticorum habitacula u2. Fastnachtspiele aus dem r5. jahrhundert, B LVS 28-30. The enumeration of
see
lares et ordea magalia per gule predia caule domos et tuguria per singulos annos iu­ peasant plays is given in Lefebvre, Les fols et la Jolie, p. 51. On fools and peasants,
bileos deuastantur aut igne consumuntur, denudantur, spoliantur, et exuuntur." Ragotzky, "Der Bauer in der Narrenrolle."
91. Mollat and Wolff, Popular Revolutions, p. 89. u3. DuBruck, "Conspectus of the Peasant," p. 40.
92. Gower, Mirour de l'omme, vv. 26425-80 (p. 293). u4. Wunder, "Der dumme und der schlaue Bauer," p 35. In Vienna and Stras­
ac­
93. Fr�de�ic C. Tubach, Index exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious bourg in the late fifteenth century, "dressing up as a peasant" meant the general pr
tice of donning costumes for Carnival (Vandenbroeck, "Verbeeck's Peasant Wed-
Tales (Helsmki, I969), no. 3652, pp. 282-83 (six citations).
94. Traverse, Peasants, Seasons and Werltsueze, pp. 59-60. dings," p. 85).
95. Vandenbroeck, "Verbeeck's Peasant Weddings," p. 98; Braet, ''A Thing Most u5. Merlini, Satira contro ii villano, app. I, pp. I75-77.
Brutish," p. I92. u6. Ibid., vv. 6-I5 (p. I75):
96. Jones, "F��ction of Food"; Guer:au-Jalabert, "Aliments symboliques"; Adams, Demro del uostro bursello
. _
"Egregious Feasts. Although agreemg with the association of the vilain with ravenous Non habetis numeros,
and indiscriminate appetite, Susan E. Farrier calls attention to some cases in which Inter dumos
aristocratic characters in chansons de geste act in the fashion of vilains, fighting with Cum li piedi discalc;i,
non-noble weapons and eating voraciously. See her "Hungry Heroes in Medieval E cum li falzi
Literature." Inciditis herbas
97. Examples are given in Jonin, "La revision d'un topos," p. I79· Inter merdas
98. Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux, no. 40, 5: 46-48. De le uostre uache
99. Discussed by Simon, Neidhart von Reuental pp. I64-80; Jost, Bauernfeind­ Cum chali e rache
lichkeit. In corpore toto.
mo. Eiximenis, Lo Crestia, bk. 3, from his Contes i faules, pp. 38-40.
(In your purse you have no
IOI. Materialien zur Neidhart-Uberlieferung, pp. I53-59; Simon, "Origin of Neid­
money, you go among the
hart Plays"; Jost, Bauernfeindlichkeit, pp. II7-35.
thorns with bare feet, and with
rn2. Examples are collected in Erzahlungen des spi:iten Mittelalters 2: 353-9I,
the sickle you attack the g rass.
497-503.
Among the turds of your cat­
rn3. Simon, "Rustic Muse."
tle, with callouses and sores [?]
rn4. Ibid., pp. 246-47, 249-51.
all over your body.)
rn5. Perger, Hohle, and Pauch, Neidhart Frescoes ca. r400.
 Notes to Chapter 6 Notes to Chapter 7 359
358

II7. Ibid., vv. 18-19 (p. 175); vv. 45-47 (p. 176). 121. There are two versions, both in Merlini, Satira contro ii villano, app. 6, pp.
II8. Ibid., vv. 34-57 (p. 176). 225-28. One begins: ''A lavorar e sempre destinato / II perfido villan, malvagio, in­
II9. Ibid., vv. 84-87 (p. 177): "Homines rident / Quando vident / Li uostri grato." (He is destined always to labor, the perfidious, evil, ungrateful peasant.) The
dafii." (Men laugh when they see the harm you cause.) Vv. 104-19 (p. 177): other begins: ''A lavorare sempre e destinato / II villano maligno et ostinato." (He is
destined always to labor, the wicked and obstinate peasant.)
Perche in vuy regna 122. Aristotle, Politics 125¥-1255b.
Ogni mali<;ia
E ogni tristitia
Chapter 7
E siti ignoranti
Tuti quanti, I. Mellinkoff, Outcasts 1: 137-40.
Mendatori 2. Fredrickson, Black Image; Winthrop Jordan, White over Black, pp. 150-63.
Robatori, 3. Bahktin, Rabelais and His World, pp. 196-277, 303-67.
Li uostri errori 4. See above, Chapter 4.
Si purgano cusi
5. Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages; Sprunger, "Wildfolk and Lunatics
Como vedeti
in Medieval Romance"; Bartra, Wildmen in the Looking Glass-, and idem, Artificial
Che siti tractati,
Savage. The wild man avoided civilization but, unlike the peasant, did present some­
Perche non vi leuati
thing of a sexual threat (specifically a propensity for abducting women).
Troppo in alte<;a 6. As noted by Zink, "La suffisance du paysan," p. 37.
La uostra aspre<;a
7. E.g., poem no. II7, sts. 10-13, in Die Berliner Neidhart-Handschrift c, pp.
Ve fa stentare
292-93.
8. "Berengier au lone Cul," in Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux, no. 34, vv.
El dl e la nocte.
(For in you reigns 14-23 (4: 270).
every sort of malice 9. Medieval Pastourelle, no. 24 (1: 184); no. 78 (1: 218); no. II2 (1: 288); No. 146
and grie£ You are (2: 386-88) is similar, but involves a vilain who lives in Paris.
all thoroughly igno­ IO. Boccaccio, Decameron, third day, novella 1 (1: 198).
rant, liars, robbers. II. Bullough, "Medieval Medical and Scientific Views ofWomen"; Byn um, "Fe­
Thus are your er­ male Body and Religious Practice."
rors purged; you are 12. Margetts, "Die Darstellung der weiblichen Sexualitat"; R. H. Bloch, Me­
treated in such a dieval Misogyny, pp. 65-91.
way that you can­ 13. Cadden, Meanings ofSex Difference, pp. 134-65.
not rise too high. 14. Juan del Encina, "Representaci6n . . . ante el muy esclarecido muy ilustre
Your bitterness principe don Juan, nuestro soberano senor . . . " (written 1497), in his Obras comp/e-
makes you miser­ tas 4: II8-34, especially pp. 128-29. One finds similar surprise at the ability
of rustics
able day and night.) to feel the pangs of love in Boccaccio (see above, note IO for this chapter) and Maffeo
Vegio da Lodi (cited in Merlini, Satira contro il villano, pp. 48-49).
120. Ibid., vv. 122-28 (p. 177):
15. Andreas Capellanus, On Love I.II (p. 222).
Serui seruorum 16. From a treatise on love edited by Arthur Langfors, "Deux traites sur l'amour
Asini asinorum tires du manuscrit 2200 de la Bibliotheque Saint-Genevieve," p. 367: "Volentei
Maledicat uos deus, d'amer ki en vilain se met et ki estruer le fait ausi comme une beste salvage, ne (ne)
In secula seculorum poet son corage aploiier a nule cortoisie ne a nule bonte, ains aime folement et sans
Amen. Ab insidiis diaboli et coverture. Et che n' est mie amours, ains est ensi comme rage, quant vilains s'entremet
signoria de villano et a furore d'amer." (The desire of love that puts itself in the vilain causes him to go about it in
rusticorum libera nos domine. the fashion of a savage beast. He can't bend his art to any courtesy or goodness;
 Notes to Chapter 7 360
rather he loves foolishly, out in the open. It is not love but rather wildness when vi­
fains set themselves to love.)
17. Kavaler, "Pieter Bruegel and the Common Man," pp. 13-14.
18. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 33, fol. 129v.
19. J. Baldwin, Language ofSex, pp. 66-68.
20. "Le Vilain de Bailleul," pp. no-17, cited in Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, p. 178.
21. "Le Prestre qui abvete," cited in Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, p. 178.
22. Wack, Lovesickness. On the context of the Viaticum and medieval lovesick­
ness, see Lowes, "Loveres Maladye of Hereos," especially pp. 23-27. I thank Eugene
Lyman, of Rowan University, for this reference.
23. Wack, "Liber de heros morbo of Johannes Afflacius."
24. Wack, Lovesickness, pp. 17-20.
25. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, vv. 522-628
(1: 17-20).
26. Andreas Capellanus, On Love I.II (p. 222).
27. J. Baldwin, Language ofSex, p. 60. See also Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, pp.
176-86; Leupin, Barbarolexis, pp. 106-18.
28. Cited in Niccoli, I sacerdtiti, i guerrieri, i contadini, p. 57. The three are also
typified as descendants of Shem, Japheth, and Ham. This is also found, according to
Niccoli, in a chronicle by Johann Nauderus ofTiibingen, printed in 1504.
29. There are some German literary instances of malformed rustics, in Ruodlieb
and Parzifal for example, as noted in Heald, "Peasant in Mediaeval German Litera­
ture," pp. 33-38.
30. Traverse, "Peasants, Seasons and Werltsiieze" (Ph.D. diss.), p. 57, refers to
"prancing peasants with astounding amounts of free time to entertain themselves."
31. Traverse, Peasants, Seasons and Werltsiieze, pp. 63-68, 141-42; idem, "Hie sager
Neidhart," pp. 9-12.
32. Die Lieder Neidharts, Winter Song no. 34, st. 5, vv. 3-9 (p. 128):
nu ist in allen landen niht wan truren uncle klagen,
sit der ungeviiege dorper Engelmar
vii der lieben Vriderune ir spiegel nam.
do begrunde truren vreude uz al den landen jagen,
daz si gar verswant
mit der vreude wart versant
zuht und ere; disiu driu sit leider neimen vant.
(Now in all the world there is only lamentation
since the wicked boor Engelmar took the mirror
from the beloved Vriderune. Thereafter true joy
was withdrawn from the land so that it com­
pletely disappeared along with breeding and
honor. These three are unfortunately nowhere to
be found.)
Notes to Chapter 7 361
33. Die Berliner Neidhart-Handschrift c, no. II, st. 8 (pp. 33-34); no. 33 (32), st. 5
(p. 91).
34. Andreas Capellanus, On Love I.II (p. 222).
35. Ruiz, Libro def Arcipreste, st. 431, lines 3-4 (p. 48): "si podieres non quieras
amar muger villana, / que de amor non sabe, es como bausana." (If you can, avoid
loving a peasant girl, for she knows nothing and is a fool where love is concerned.)
36. Parodistische Texte, no. 7, p. 22: "Deus, qui perpetuam discordiam inter lecca­
tores et rusticos seminasti, da nobis de eorum uxoribus et filiabus uti et de eorum
morte gaudere." C£ a British Library MS cited in Niccoli, I sacerdoti, i guerrieri, i
contadini, p. 39.
37. Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale," in Canterbury Tales, vv. 82-84: "She was a
prymerole, a piggesnye / For any lord to leggen in his bedde, / Or yet for any good
yeman to wedde." I thank John B. Friedman for pointing this out to me.
38. For two version of this poem and a discussion, see U. Muller, "Gaude mihi!"
39. On the genre of the pastourelle, see Zink, La pastourelle.
40. This is the term used by Gilbert and Gubar, Madwoman in the Attic, p. 506.
41. Paris, Melanges de litterature franfaise, p. 566; Jackson, "Medieval Pastourelle
as a Satirical Genre."
42. Paden, "Rape in the Pastourelle," p. 344.
43. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, p. III.
44. Ibid., pp. 104-21. Paden, "Rape in the Pastourelle," pp. 331-49, denies that
the poems are essentially about rape. Rather, in Paden's opinion, they exemplify a cul­
tivated and lyrical sensuality, with the actual assault being something of an extrane­
ous fantasy or Freudian dirty joke.
45. Medieval Pastourelle, no. 30 (1: 98-101).
46. Ibid., no. 35 (1: no-15).
47. Ibid., no. 109, (1: 278-83).
48. Compare Gaunt's interpretation of certain troubadour poems as contests be-
tween men, in his "Poetry of Exclusion."
49. Dozer-Rabedeau, "Rusticus."
50. 'Tautrier jost'una sebissa," in Medieval Pastourelle, no. 8 (1: 36-41).
51. "Quant Ii dous estes define," ibid., no. 42 (1: 132-33).
52. J. Baldwin, Language ofSex, p. 205.
53. Ferrante, "Male Fantasy and Female Reality," p. 70.
54. Zink, "La suffisance du paysan," pp. 42-46, elaborates a view opposite that of
Baldwin and Ferrante: that the shepherdess exists in a world completely closed off
from the chivalric and that the dialogue is one of mutual incomprehensibility. This
seems to me to exaggerate the social distance and does not account for the sophisti­
cation of the female character in the poems, her responsiveness to love, or her ban­
tering knowledge of the knight's desires.
55. Medieval Pastourelle, no. 31 (1: 102-3).
56. Ibid., no. 44 (1: 136-37).
57. Trans. Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens, p. n6.
 Notes to Chapter 7 362
58. Medieval Pastourelle, no. 43 (1: 132-33); no. II5 (1: 296-97); no. 13 (1: 50-51).
59. Burns, Bodytalk.
60. Medieval Pastourelle, no. 172 (2: 434-39).
61. See Ziolkowski, '½.vatars of Ugliness"; and Brewer, "Ideal of Feminine
Beauty."
62. Deyermond, "Some Aspects of Parody"; Marino, La serranilla espaiiola, pp.
48-64; Tate, '½.dventures in the Sierra."
63. Ruiz, Libro defArcipreste, sts. 950-71 (pp. 97-100).
64. Ibid., sts. 972-92 (pp. 100-103).
65. Ibid., sts. 993-1021 (pp. 103-6).
66. Deyermond, "El hombre salvaje"; Mazur, Wild Man in the·Spanish Renais­
sance, pp. 8-10.
67. Deyermond, "Some Aspects of Parody," p. 77.
68. Medieval Pastourelle, nos. 202-5 (2: 514-23); Marino, La serranilla espafiola,
pp.n6-19.
69. Santillana, Poesias completas, pp. 63-71, 77-80; Lapesa, La obra literaria def
Marques de Santillana, pp. 53-63; Marino, La serranilla espaiiola, pp. 65-107.
70. Traverse, "Hie saget Neidhart," pp. 16-17.
71. Die Lieder Neidharts, no. 14, pp. 79-81.
72. Die Berliner Neidhart-Handschrift c, no. II7, pp. 289-95.
73. Ibid., no. 17 (16), pp. 55-m Materialien zur Neidhart-Uberlieferung, pp.
153-59.
74. Jost, Bauernfeindlichkeit, p. 105 n. 28.
75. Wittenwiler, Der Ring. For the little that is known about Wittenwiler, see
Sowinski's discussion on pp. 499-501.
76. Der Bauernhochzeitsschwank. See Wittenwiler, Der Ring, pp. 505-14, for
Sowinski's discussion of the peasant wedding and Neidhart background to Witten­
wiler's poem.
77. Wittenwiler, Der Ring, vv. 61-94 (pp. 4-6).
78. Vandenbroeck, "Verbeeck's Peasant Weddings"; Moxey, "Social Function of
Secular Woodcuts," especially pp. 63-68; idem, "Festive Peasants and Social Order."
79. Vandenbroeck, "Verbeeck's Peasant Weddings," p. 82.
80. Ibid., pp. 109-16. Grobian refers to the anonymous work Grobianus (1538)
and especially the widely read Grobianus: Von groben Sitten und unhoflichen Geberden
of Caspar Scheidt (1551). Grobian appears as a synonym for rusticus as early as 1482.
81. Stewart, "Paper Festivals and Popular Entertainment," for example, rejects
the view that these prints depicting peasant holidays are satires, regarding them in­
stead as celebrations of revelry with certain moralizing overtones. Given the consid­
erable medieval background for what these woodcuts present, I do not find her argu­
ment very convincing. Because Nuremberg was a typically dirty and disorderly early­
modern city with crude tastes and habits, Stewart (p. 304) reasons that the engravings
merely represent good times. T his seems to me to perpetuate unexamined diches
about the past in the guise of combating anachronism. On the background of con-
Notes to Chapter 8 363
troversy over realistic or favorable interpretation of art involving peasants, see Alpers,
"Bruegel's Festive Peasants"; Miedema, "Realism and Comic Mode"; and Alpers,
"Taking Pictures Seriously." Vandenbroeck, "Verbeeck's Peasant Weddings," pp.
79-81, faults both Alpers and Miedema for reductionist simplification but takes par­
ticular issue with Alpers, demonstrating (especially by reference to inscriptions) just
how negatively the artists intended to present the peasants' behavior. See also Raupp,
Bauernsatiren; and Carroll, "Peasant Festivity and Political Identity," pp. 289-95.
82. R. Baldwin, "Peasant Imagery"; K.avaler, "Pieter Bruegel and the Common
Man," pp. n4-44.
Chapters
I. Duby, Three Orders, p. 187.
2. Falk, Etude sociale, pp. 77-78; Bessmertny, "Le paysan vu par le seigneur,"
especially pp. 601-2; Bertran de Born, "Be.m plai lo gais temps de pascor," in his
Poems, no. 30, p. 339.
3. From the Oustillement au Vilain, cited in Braet, '½. T hing Most Brutish,"
p. 194.
4. B. Arnold, German Knighthood, pp. 53-75; idem, "Instruments of Power."
5. Kaiser, Textauslegung und gesellschafiliche Selbstdeutung, pp. 21-69.
6. Ibid., pp. 34-35, citing Chronicon Eberheimense, MGH Scriptores 23, p. 432:
"[Julius Caesar] .. . cum Romam redire disponeret, conventum in Germania cele­
bravit omnibusque valedicens, minores milites principibus commendavit, ut non
quasi servis ac famulis uterentur, sed quasi domini ac defensores ministeria ipsorum
reciperent. Inde accidit, quod preter nationes ceteras Germani milites fiscales regni
et ministeriales principum nuncupantur."
7. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv. 1565-2280 (BLV S 247, 1: 65-95).
8. Excerpted in Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 146,
pp. 374-79.
9. Ottokar von Steiermark, Osterreichische Reimchronik, lines 26176-98 (MGH
Deutsche Chronikon 5, pt. 1, p. 346).
10. Carmen Carle, Del concejo medieval Castellano Leones; Pescador del Hoyo,
"La caballerfa popular en Leon y Castilla''; Powers, Society Organized for \:\Jar.
n. Wickham, Early Medievalltaly, pp. 144-45.
12. Rather of Verona, Praeloquia 1.23 (CC, Continuatio medievalis 46A, p. 24),.
cited in Wickham, Early Medieval Italy, p. 145.
13. Wernher de Gartenaere, Helmbrecht, vv. 289-91 (pp. 36-38).
14. For Audigier, see Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois, pp. 51-80; and Li Romans de
Garin le Loherain 2: 152-53, cited in Le Goff, Medieval Civilization, p. 300.
15. Ottonis et Raheweni gesta Friderici I imperatoris 2.23 (MGH Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum, pp. 126-27). See Fleckenstein, "Zur Frage der Abgrenzung von
Bauer und Ritter," p. 247.
16. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 83, p. 222.
 Notes to Chapter 8 364 Notes to Chapter 8 365
17. Ibid., no. 122, pp. 326-28. tion but rather to the official mobilization of forces assembled by the Landesherr,
18. Buch der Rugen, pp. 86-88. among which are peasants.
19. Cited in Sokol, "Das Grundproblem der Gesellschaft," p. 155. 35. Ferrer i Mallol, "El sagramental," especially pp. 66-70.
20. Berthold von Regensburg, Vollstandige Ausgabe seiner Predigten 1: 14. 36. An anonymous poem in Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder, no. 143, st.
21. Die poetische Bearbeitung des Buches Daniel vv. 2716-20 (p. 43): 7 (1: 375-76):
0 human, wider wiche Die armen solt der adel
vrolichen zu dem pluge, beschiitzen auss ir pflicht,
so wirt dir rechte vuge so hat er selbs ain tadel
gegeben und ein crone und ist zum tail entwicht;
von Gote dort zu lone! das wirt gott nit vertragen,
die bosen schwarlich plagen,
22. Szucs, "Die Ideologie des Bauernkrieges," in his Nation und Geschichte,
si werden noch erschlagen
pp. 333-34.
von dem gemain pauersman,
23. Schwabenspiegel Kurzform, Landrecht 308 (p. 387): "Wir sullen den hernn dar
es facht iez darzu an.
umb dienen day sy vns schirmen, vnd als sy die lant nit schirment so sind si nicht
diensts schuldig." (We should therefore serve the lords that protect us, and if they do The translation is from Gudde, Social Conflicts, pp. u6-17.
not protect the land, then they are not owed service.) 37. On the medieval history of Andorra, see Baudon de Mony, Relations poli­
24. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 121, p. 326: "Gens qui­ tiques; Font i Rius, "Els origens del co-senyoriu andorra"; Viader, "Pouvoirs et com­
dem est libera extra gentem suam, alterius domino non subjecta. Morti se opponunt munautes en Andorre"; Andorra romanica, pp. 19-60; and Baraut, 'Tevolucio
gratia libertatis et potius mortem eligunt quam jugo opprimi servitutis." politica de la senyoria d'Andorra."
25. Bartlett, Making ofEurope, p. 77. 38. The original parishes are Andorra, Loria, La Mac;ana, Encamp, Canillo, and
26. Landes, "La vie apostolique en Aquitaine"; idem, "Between Aristocracy and Ordino. The parish of Escaldes-Engordany was formed later. The importance of the
Heresy." parishes remains evident in the nature of the National Archive of Andorra, whose
27. Bonnassie, "From One Servitude to Another," in his From Slavery to Feudal­ oldest component is the ''Archive of the Seven Keys," so-called because opening it re­
ism, pp. 288-313, especially pp. 305-13. quires the consent of each parish that guards one of the keys.
28. Jacob, "La meurtre du seigneur clans la societe feodale." 39. Ourliac, "De la feodalite meridionale."
29. Ibid., p. 252, citing a report from Galbert de Marchienne's Miracula Sanctae 40. The ability of the Andorrans to preserve their local rights against secular
Rictrudis. lords and the bishop of Urgell is described by Viader, "La irracional possessio." On
30. Cabrera and Moros, Fuenteovejuna, pp. 139-84. the erosion of rural rights and the imposition of exactions in this region, see Bon­
31. Barros, "Violencia y muerte del senor en Galicia." nassie and Guichard, "Les communautes rurales en Catalogne"; Freedman, Origins
32. Eupolemius, p. 11. of Peasant Servitude, pp. 79-88; and Bonnassie, La Catalogn.e, esp. 2: 575-610,
33. Eupolemius, bk. 2, vv. 123-24, trans. Ziolkowski (p. 33). 781-829.
34. Der Stricker, "Beispiel von den Gauhiihnern," in his Mare von den Gauhuh- 41. Vela i Palomares, ''Andorra a la baixa edat mitjana."
nern, p. 72: 42. These privileges are recorded in vol. 3 of Privilegis i ordinacions de les valls
pyrenenques. Particularly important are those from the fifteenth century (especially
Ir zorn machet biirge val:
nos. 26 and 27, from 1419), which are not recorded in the more recent collections
swie groze veste ein burc habe,
edited by Baraut and by Baiges and Fages, cited below and in the bibliography.
si brennents oder stozents abe,
43. Cartulari de la Vall d'Andorra, segles IX-XIII, no. 76 (1: 220-26).
alss Kirchelinge taten.
44. Ibid., nos. 129 and 135 (1: 307-15, 323-34).
See Hiigli, Der deutsche Bauer im Mittelalter, pp. 71-73; and Baier, Der Bauer in der 45. Font i Rius, "Els origens del co-senyoriu d'Andorra," p. 749. Ourliac, "De la
Dichtung des Strickers, pp. 93-103. Otfrid Ehrismann ("Tradition und Innovation," feodalite meridionale," pp. 64-66, describes the use of pariages by French kings in
pp. 185-87) believes that the above-quoted passage refers not to a peasant insurrec- extending their rule over new territories.
 Notes to Chapter 8 366
46. See, for example, the documents collected in Privilegis i ordinacions de les
valls pyrenenques, the third volume of which concerns Andorra.
47. La Seu d'Urgell, Arxiu Capitular, Liber Dotaliorum I, fol. 265v (1085), in
"Els documents, dels anys 1076-1092, de l'Arxiu Capitular de La Seu d'Urgell," no.
1014, p. 134; Arxiu Capitular de La Seu d'Urgell, Liber Dotaliorum I, fols. 265r-265V
(1095) (not in Baraut's collection); Liber Dotaliorum I, fol. 265v (1097), in "Els doc­
uments, dels anys 1093-noo, de l'Arxiu Capitular de La Seu d'Urgell," no. n54,
p. 84.
48. Diplomatari de la Vall d'Andorra, segle XlY, no. 40 (1: 98-no) (from the year
1347).
49. Ibid., nos. 94-98, 102, 104 (pp. 216-23, 235-38); Vela i Palomares, ''.Andorra a
la baixa edat mitjana," pp. 264-66.
50. Diplomatari de la Vall d'Andorra, segle XlY, nos. 21, 25, 57 (1: 51-52, 62-65,
151-59).
51. Fiter i Rossell, Manual digest (written 1748), prologue to book 6, p. 487.
52. Belinguer, La condition juridique, pp. 170-73.
53. Ibid., p. 170. T he French government has intervened, but as co-prince (the
king of France and president of the Republic having succeeded the count of Foix).
54. Cartulari de la Vall d'Andorra, segles IX-XIII, no. 1 (1: 89-90). T hat Charle­
magne founded Andorra was still accepted in the nineteenth century; see, e.g., Rous­
sillon, De l'Andorre; Chevalier, La Republique d'Andorre, p. 5; Boucoiran, Ariege, An­
dorre et Catalogne, p. 171.
55. Fiter i Rossell, Manual digest, pp. 84-86.
56. Riberaygna Argelich, Los Valles de Andorra, p. 30:
El gran Carlemany mon Pare,
Deis Alarbs me deslliura
Sols resto l' unica filla
Del Imperi Carlemany
Creient i lliure onse segles
Creient i lliure vull ser.
57. Psalm 82:n, "Who perished at Endor: and became as dung for the earth."
Fiter i Rossell, Manual digest, pp. 25-29, accepts this as a possibility, noting that Saint
Jerome said Endor was the site of a castle built in preparation for war, and that others
have said it was a redoubt for a refuge from infidel attacks. Charlemagne, Fiter notes,
was well acquainted with Scripture.
58. "Ha seguit la Seca, la Mecca, i la Vall d'Andorra." First found in the Spill by
Jaume Roig (written between 1455 and 1462), cited in Gran geografia comarcal de
Catalunya 16: 288.
59. Sahlins, Boundaries, pp. 16-17.
60. Wickham, The Mountains and the City, pp. 360-65.
Notes to Chapter 8 367
61. Miret i Sans, lnvestigacion historica, pp. 203-18; Trag6, Spill manifest.
62. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, pp. 34-50; Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, pp.
124-35.
63. Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, p. 140.
64. Fiter i Rossell, Manual digest, maxima 26, p. 504. Merchants were also to be
favored.
65. Ibid., maxima 49: "No demostrar may riquesas, ni propalar poder, y forsas,
sinos predicar miserias, y flaquessas delas Valls; pues es aixi."
66. Ibid., p. 7: "pues yo Escrich tansolament per los naturals delas Valls . . . a
mes que esta Obra deu quedar manuscrita, en una dos o tres Copias en sos
archius . . . no es bo, que la Ciencia del govern, politica, Economia, y regimen deles
Valls, se fasia Comuna, y Vulgar als forasters." (For I write solely for the natives of
the Valleys . . . moreover this work must remain in manuscript, in one, two, or three
copies in its [Andorra's] archives . . . it would not be a good thing for the science of
government, political organization, economy, and the rulership of the Valleys to be
common and public knowledge among foreigners.) T hese instructions were followed
until 1987. T he publication of the Manuel digest in that year, its distribution to every
Andorran household, and its availability to foreigners marked a step toward chang­
ing the constitution and international status of Andorra.
67. Constitucio del Principat d'Andorra (Andorra, 1993). Before this, Andorra was
held to be incapable of diplomatic representation and could not of its own accord
make legislation or conclude treaties (Belinguer, La conditionjuridique, pp. 221-28).
68. Frisch, Andorra.
69. McPhee, La Place de la Concorde Suisse.
70. Dettwiler, William Tell, pp. 54-55.
71. Bergier, Guillaume Tell, p. 9. On the Tell legend see also the recent article by
Head, "William Tell and His Comrades," which concerns the absence of images of
fraternity (as opposed to images of comradeship) in the early Swiss self-conception.
72. Hughes, Switzerland, p. 20.
73. See P. Blickle, "Das Gesetz der Eidgenossen."
74. "Zwei Flugschriften aus der Zeit Maximilians I," v. 86 (p. 169): "Denn sy
wolten herschafft frey leben." Vv. 100-101 (p. 170): "Dann sy wolten sein gar nie­
mands knecht, / Seiber herr wolten sy bleiben."
75. Martini, Das Bauerntum, pp. 302-10.
76. T his point is made by Weishaupt in his Bauern, Hirten und "frume edle
puren, "pp. 150-65.
77. W hat follows is largely based on Bergier, Guillaume Tell, pp. 15-22, 57-79.
78. Das �isse Buch von Sarnen, pp. 14-19.
79. Das Lied von der Entstehung, pp. 34-50; Das Urner Tel/spiel, pp. 70-99. Other
sources before 1580 are listed in Head, "William Tell and His Comrades," p. 528 n. 2.
80. Aegidius Tschudi, Chronicon Helveticum 1: 451-55 (for the year 1307).
81. Das Urner Tel/spiel, p. 82:
 Notes to Chapter 8 368 Notes to Chapter 8 369

Niit, nilt, T hell, du must dran die hie lebent in disem zytt
Dann kein gnad solt an mir han! so ir kein herren wend han
Ich wil mich an iich buren rechen lugend nun, vnnd land nit darvon.
V nd solt iich das herz im lyb zerbrechen. 100. An die Versammlung gemeiner Bauernschaft, p. n8.
Translated in Head, "William Tell and His Comrades," p. 542. IOI. Ibid., p. 87.

82. T his story appears in The White Book ofSarnen, the Urner Tellspiel and else­ 102. Brady, Turning Swiss, pp. 34-42.
where (see Head, "William Tell and His Comrades," pp. 534-36). 103. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 81 (1: 393). See also no. 79 (1: 386), another
83. An insult to a woman by a lecherous officer was also the legendary cause of pro-Austrian song from the same era in which the Swiss are "heathen'' (haiden), and
the Sicilian Vespers of 1282 (Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, pp. 176-79). no. 231 (2: 491), a song of 1503 against the Swiss campaigns in Bellinzona (Ticino)
84. See above, Chapter 5, pp. n4-15. (the Swiss as verleugneten Christen).
85. Rothkrug, "Icon and Ideology," pp. 43-45. 104. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 80 (1: 389-91).
86. E.g., Die historischen Volkslieder, vol. 1, nos. 34, 80, 83; vol. 2, nos. 130, 197.
0 105. P. Blickle, "Das gesetz der Eidgenossen," p. 584.
87. Marchal, "Die Antwort der Bauern," pp. 759-60. 106. Examples in Marchal, "Die Antwort der Bauern," pp. 768-69 n. 37.
88. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 33, fol. 131v: "Est plebs que non 107. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 144 (2: 102).
plebs, gens que non gens, qui/ Non homines dici sed fera monstra queunt." 108. Ibid., no. 34 (1: 134):
89. Ibid., cap. 33, fols. 13or-13ov.
Herzog Lupolt von Oesterrich
90. Ibid., fol. 129v-13or, where the men are like women and the women like
was gar ein freidig man
men: "quemadmodum in hermafrodita mysterium perturbent." T he men are possi­
keins guten rats belud er sich,
bly also given to intercourse with their animals.
91. "Zwei Flugschriften aus der Zeit Maximilians I," vv. 100-n2 (p. 170), vv. wolt mit den puren schlan,
he gar furstlich wolt ers wagen:
459-71 (pp. 180-81).
do er an die buren kam,
92. Ibid., vv. 175-76 (p. 172): "Die sweitzer hab ich dem tiircken gleicht,/ wyt
von seiner art der schweitzer weicht." hands in zetod erschlagen.
93· Marchal, "Die Antwort der Bauern," p. 757; Brady, Turning Swiss, p. 58. On 109. Ibid., no. 34 (1: 125): "die Schwitzer wend wir zwingen/ und inen ein herren
the Swabian War see Brady, pp. 57-72. geben." (We will master the Swiss and give them a lord.)
94. Brady, Turning Swiss, especially pp. 34-42. no. For example, Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 210 (2: 422), a song from 1499,
95. From Jacob Unrest, Osterreichische Chronik, in Quellen zur Geschichte des written during the Swabian War:
Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 3, p. 21. Discussed by Algazi, Herrengewalt, pp. 74-78.
96. "Zwei Flugschriften aus der Zeit Maximilians I," vv. 225-26 (p. 174): "Den Es lit ein tiefer grab bi Hard,
buntschuh auff alien erden,/ Das wir auch all frey mochten werden." dar in vil Schwaben getoufet ward,
97. Quoted in Brady, Turning Swiss, p. 35. des kamend si in truren!
98. Quoted and translated in Head, "William Tell and His Comrades," p. 540: der bar der touft si nach siner art,
menger Schwizer da ir goti ward,
edelliit sind buren worden si schrilwend: "was boser puren!"
vnnd die buren edelliit
III. Ibid., no. 93 (1: 284-88, 433), from 1450, a song about the Markgrafenkrieg:
Aber die Schwizer sind die rechten edelliit: und schrein: "heut mussens unser eigen sein!"
ir tugent inen den adel voruss gitt.
99. Ibid.: Tauss ess kan niemants abgeweisen,
so nemen die Sweizer niemant gefangen,
weger wers, frisch erschlagen darumb last uns von hinnen wenden,
weder allso ein grosses ioch tragen. der grimmig zorn hat sie durchgangen,
darumb sind ir die gliickhafftigisten lilt sie werden den adel hie morden und schenden.
 Notes to Chapter 8 370 Notes to Chapter 8 371

English translation from Brady, Turning Swiss, p. 36. wi willen darumme wagen hals und gut
u2. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 93 (1: 429). und willen dat gar ummekeren.
u3. Examples are cited in Marchal, "Die Antwort der Bauern," pp. 772-73. Wi willen darumme wagen goet und bloet
u4. Ibid., pp. 766-75. und willen dar alle umme sterven,
u5. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 197 (2: 373): er dat der Holsten er avermoet
Schand schand si allen fi.irsten so scholde unse schone lant vorderven."
von got und der welt geseit, (T hen spoke Roleffs Bojeken's son,
class sie nit wil dirsten, the best in our land: come hither you
zu beschirmen die cristenheit, proud Dithmarschers! We shall cast
und nit weren die schande, off our grief, for what hands have
die der Turk alltag tut built, hands can destroy. T he Dith­
so vii in tutschem lande marschers respond loudly, "We will
und an dem cristen blut! suffer now and nevermore, for this we
(Shame, shame upon all princes will risk life and possessions and will
who go against [?] God and the not turn back. We would rather sacri­
world, that they refuse to bestir fice goods and blood and all die than
themselves to protect Christen­ that the Holsteiners' arrogance should
dom, doing nothing to oppose ruin our beautiful land.")
the many shameful acts com­ 122. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 213, p. 542.
mitted every day by the Turks in 123. On this event, see Lammers, Die Schlacht bei Hemmingstedt.
German lands and against the 124. Fontane, "Der Tag von Hemmingsted," in his Gedichte 1: 179-85; Bartels,
blood of Christians.) Die Dithmarscher.
u6. Martini, Das Bauerntum, pp. 319-21. 125. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 219 (2: 454) (also in Neocorus, Chronik des
u7. See above, note 24 for this chapter. On this region and its culture see Lam­ Landes Dithmarschen 1: 522):
mers, "Nordelbische Mentalitatsstudien." De sik jegen Ditmerschen setten will,
u8. On the Stedingen Revolt, see Kohn, "Freiheit als Forderung," pp. 325-34. de stelle sik wol tor were:
u9. Lammers, Die Schlacht bei Hemmingstedt, pp. 46-56; Urban, Dithmarschen, Ditmerschen dat scholen buren sin,
pp. 26-28; Franz, Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, pp. 92-95. it mogen wol wesen heren!
120. T he documents are collected in Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte des Landes
Dithmarschen, especially nos. 26, 28-30, 32-33, 46-47 (pp. 31-85). 126. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 215 (2: 446): "Dar hest so manich stolt edel­
121. Die historischen Volkslieder, no. 45 (1: 216); also in Quellen zur Geschichte des man I syn levent umb vorlaren."
deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 197 (p. 502): 127. Ibid., no. 216 (2: 447) (also in Neocorus, Chronik des Landes Dithmarschen
2: 561):
Do sprack sick Roleffs Bojeken sone,
de beste in unsem lande: se [the Danish army] repen: "wolan, gi ditmarschen buren
gi moten (noch alle) van avende sterven!"
"Tredet herto, gi stolten Ditmarschen!
unsen kummer wille wi wreken,
"nu help, Maria du maged rein,
wat hendeken gebuwet haen,
wi laven di mit gantser truwen:
dat konnen wol hendken tobreken."
beholden wi nu de averhand,
De Ditmarschen repen averlut: ein kloster willen wi di buwen!"
"Dat lide wi nu und nummermere,
 Notes to Chapter 8 372
Ein crucifix hadden se all mit gebracht,
dar sik de garde so ser verschrak:
an einer korten ure
der garde blef soven dusent dod
dat dede god dorch Ditmarsche buren!
(T he Danish army says: "Beware,you
Dithmarscher peasants.You will all be
dead by evening." ..."Now help,Maria,
pure maid,we adore you with all our
faith.Give to us the victory and we will
build you a church." ...T hey had
brought with them a crucifix before
which the Danish troops were so fright­
ened; in a brief hour the Danes left seven
thousand dead.T his is what God did
through the Dithmarschen peasants!)
128. Neocorus, Chronik des Landes Dithmarschen 1: 503:
In unsen Dagen dit Wunder is geboert,
Dat in velen Olderen nicht is gehort
Dat Heren unde Knechte,in velen Striden vorfaren,
So wunderliken hebben den Sege vorlaren.
Nu iss dit gescheen dorch Gadess Raedt,
All were wi denne noch so quaet,
Ein Iderman schal sick sulven tuchten,
So dorve wi des Dodes nicht fruchten.
C£ the twelfth-century poem Eupolemius (cited above in note 32 for this chapter),in
_ 5. Harris, Complete Tales of Uncle Remus. For James Scott's discussion of the " hid­
wh ich Seon mocks his peasant enemies as half-men who once were afraid of the
knights. Sother responds, "let our deeds astound you," and kills Seon with a dart
through the throat.
In Serbia,the early-nineteenth-century uprising against the Turks was regarded
as a marvel made possible by peasants who shed blood for the Cross (Halpern Ser-
' 8. Chretien de Troyes, Le chevalier de la charrete, vv.6502-3 (p. 198): "Li vilains
bian Village, pp.28-29).
129. Neocorus, Chronik des Landes Dithmarschen 1: 515.
130. Ibid.,p.516:
Sie fruch teden ock weinig den allmechtigen Gott,
So heelden ein Deel der Hilligen vor Spott,
Se reepen: "o Buer,amechtiger Wicht
Vorlath di nu up de Hilligen nicht,
De Kele schall di aff in dusser Stundt,
Ick wil di morden alss einen Hundt "
Notes to Chapter 9 373
Vele Fursten hir nu enjegen doet
Vorgeten ahne Nodt Christen-Bloet
Se scholden up de Unchristen schlaen,
So sprikt nun de gemeine Man.
(T hey also had little fear of Almighty
God,and thus held many saints up to
mockery.T hey taunted,"O peasant,
powerless little dwarf,don't entrust your­
self now to the saints.I will slay you like
a dog....Many princes then hunted
them down thus,needlessly forgetting
the blood of Christ.T hey ought to strike
down the infidels,so says now the com­
mon man!)
See also Lammers,Die Schlacht bei Hemmingstedt, pp.67-68.
131. Neocorus, Chronik des Landes Dithmarschen 1: 465.Translation from Urban,
Dithmarschen, p.n2.
Chapter 9
1. London,Lambeth Palace Library,MS 441,fol.3v (to Hosea 1:4).
2. Ibid.,fol.41v (to Amos 4:9).
3. T his question is explored in Pagden, Fall ofNatural Man. For the medieval
background to this debate,see Muldoon,Popes, Lawyers and Infidels.
4. See James C.Scott,Domination, pp. 162-66. For the figure of the trickster in
Africa and among African Americans, see Gates, Signifying Monkey, pp. 3-88; and
Levine,Black Culture, pp.m-16.
den transcript," see his Domination and the Arts ofResistance.
6. "Versus de Uniboue." See also Martini,Das Bauerntum, pp.6-10.
7. Chretien de Troyes,Eric et Enide, vv. 1-3 (p. 1): "Li vilains dit a son respit /
que tel chose a l'an an despit / qui mult valt mialz l'an ne cuide."
dit bien voir qu'a poinne / puet an mes un ami trover."
9. Le Roman de Thebes, vv. 8579-80 (2: 79): "Li vilains dit: 'Qui glaive fet / sanz
dotance a glaive revet."' See also the editor's note to this passage (2: 156).
IO. Darnton,"Peasants Tell Tales."
11. Marie de France,Les lais, p.157.
12. Wace,Le Roman de Brut, vv. 4409-14 (p.236):
Mal faire pur pis remaneir,
<;o tient li vilains a saveir;
E un mal deit I'on bien suffrir
 Notes to Chapter 9 374 Notes to Chapter 9 375

Pur sun cors de peior guarir; of Stanford University, is a commentary on the Psalms in Vatican City, Biblioteca
E pur sun enemi plaissier Apostolica, MS Ottobbon. 228, fol. 16or, to Psalm 104:n: "Dicens, Tibi dabo terram
Se deit l' on alques damagier. Canaan. . . . Similiter in futuro Chanaan, mali et viles eicientur a regno celorum, se­
(To do evil to prevent cundum illud, Maledictus Chanaan, servus sit fratrum suorum. In celis non erit aliquis
something worse, thus the servus, secundum illud, in regno autem omnes erunt filii, nullus servus."
vilain teaches us; one
18. Nouveau Recueil comp/et des fabliaux, no. 13 (2: 3n-47). Described in Jonin,
must suffer pain in order "La revision d'un topos," pp. 182-83.
to cure the body of some­ 19. Hiigli, Der deutsche Bauer im Mittelalter, pp. n3-15; Martini, Das Bauerntum,
thing worse; to hurt an pp. 169-78.
enemy one must accept 20. Li proverbe au vilain. Die Sprichworter. On this and related collections see
some damage to oneself) Rattunde, Li proverbes au vilain: Untersuchungen.
21. Li proverbe au vilain. Die Sprichworter, no. 52, pp. 23-24:
13. Philippe de Thaon, Comput, vv. 131-38 (p. 6):
Povres touz tens laboure,
c;oe dit en repruver Pense et travaille et ploure,
Li vilain al buver: Onques de cuer ne rit;
La pirre reuelette Li riches rit et chante,
Criet de la charette; De grant chose se vante,
Mult est la pume dure De prou ii est petit
Qui unques ne malire; Touz se fait lie, qui auques a,
La verge est a preiser ce dit li vilains.
Qui se lest pleier.
22. Hartmann von Aue, Gregorius, der "gute Sunder."
(Thus says the vilain 23. On this story see the resume by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge in their
to the cowherd by way translation of primary materials about Alfred: Alfred the Great, pp. 197-206.
of reproach: the worst 24. Hartmann von Aue, Der arme Heinrich.
wheel of the cart is the 25. The story is given in Theodore Kantzow, Chronik von Pommern (written ca.
noisiest; it is the hard 1536), excerpted in Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 243, pp.
apple that never 602-4.
ripens; the stick that 26. For what follows concerning Bohemia I am very grateful for the help given
lets itself be bent is to to me by Lisa Wolverton, of Harvard University.
be praised.) 27. The story of Premysl is even more similar to Plutarch's account of the depo­
14. Wace, Le Roman de Brut, vv. 6101-2 (1: 325): "N'aveit fors la vilanaille, / Ki sition of Paphos, king of Cyprus, by Alexander the Great. The new ruler chosen by
n'aveit cure de bataille." (There were none save the mob of vilains, who were not in­ Alexander was a market-gardener, sole survivor of the legitimate dynasty. The parallel
terested in battle.) Shortly after this passage the vilains are said to be like mad dogs, is noted in Krappe, "La legende de Libuse," p. 87.
turbulent and pointlessly violent, in contrast to the virtuous rustics, the "povre gent" 28. Cosmas, Chronicae Bohemorum 1.3-7 (MGH Scriptores rerum germani­
and "paisanz," vv. 6131-38 (1: 326). carum, n.s. 2, pp. 5-17).
Le Roman de T�ebes, vv. 3045-46 (1: 95): "Malyages, mout ies vilains, / N'ies pas 29. On this legend see Graus, "Kirchliche und heidnische Komponenten"; and
de harde:Uent certems. I Malement veus toi foi menti." (Meleager, you're like a vi­ idem, Lebendige Vergangenheit, pp. 89-109.
_ 30. Legenda Christiani. See also Ludvikovskj, "La legende du prince-laboureur
lam; you re not very bold, that's for certain. You wickedly go back on your word.)
15. As noted by Margetts, "Das Bauerntum in der Literatur," pp. 155-57. Premysl." Material on Wenceslas has been translated from Slavonic and Latin sources
16. Nouveau Recueil complet desfabliaux, no. 39 (5: 8-38). Discussed in Jonin, "La in Kantor, Origins ofChristianity in Bohemia.
revision d'un topos," p. 183. 31. Graus, "Kirchliche und heidnische Komponenten," pp. 157-60.
17. An example of this commonplace, for which I am indebted to Philippe Bue, 32. Graus, Lebendige Vergangenheit, pp. 173-76.
 Notes to Chapter 9 376 Notes to Chapter 9 377

33. Burdach, Der Dichter des Ackermann aus Bohmen 3: 109-n.
34. Klaniczay, "Paradoxes of Royal Sainthood," p. 366.
35. Graus, "Kirchliche und heidnische Komponenten," p. 160.
36. Ibid., p. 157.
37. Other recollections of the origin of the dynasty during the succession crisis
of 1306-10 are cited in Burdach, Der Dichter der Ackermann aus Bohmen 1: 38-46.
38. On peasant ancestors see Krappe, "La legende de Libuse," pp. 86r89; and
Banaszkiewicz, "Konigliche Karrieren." On coronation rituals, see Gieysztor, "Ges­
ture in the Coronation Ceremonies," p. 157; and Ranke, ''Agrarische und bauerliche
Denk- und Verhaltensweisen," pp. 210-n. None of this association with rusticity was
at all incompatible with images of royal sanctity; see Klaniczay, "Paradoxes of Royal
Sainthood."
39. Werminghoff, "Die Quaternionen der deutschen Reichsverfassung," p. 293,
cited in Martini, Das Bauerntum, p. 229. On German "holy cities" in general, see
Haverkamp, "'Heilige Stadte' im hohen Mittelalter."
40. Epperlein, Der Bauer im Bild des Mittelalters, p. 139; Radbruch and Rad­
bruch, Der deutsche Bauernstand, pp. 59-60 and plate 12.
41. Cited in Martini, Das Bauerntum, p. 229: "Want gelijch als van dem Edelen
ackerman alle staede geystlich ind ouch wertlich gevoit und gespijset werden, so doet
ouch got der vader, der allit dat levende is in hemel und in erde spijset." (For since all
estates, temporal and spiritual, are fed and nourished by the noble plowman, so also
God the Father nourishes all the living in heaven and on earth.)
42. Hagen, Reimchronik der Stadt Coln, vv. 1291-94 (p. 44):
so wist dar weder, dat neyt so suyr
in is, as van arde ein gebuyr,
wan e dat hie up stigende is,
hie is gijr ind valsch, des sijt gewijs.
46. Ibid., pp. 127, 142.
47. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 177, p. 465: "Da viir
lob ich den Buman, der alle Werlt nern kan. Er lat sin Pfluoc umb strichen, wer mac
sich im gelkhen? . . . Also der Buren Armuot ist bezzer dan ir Richen."
48. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 178, pp. 465-66: "Ich
weis einen den aller hochsten Frunt Gotz, der ist alle sine Tage ein Ackerman gewe­
sen, me denne vierzig Jor und noch ist. Und er fragte einest unsern Herren, ob er
wolte, das er das begebe und in die Kilchen gienge sitzen. Do sprach er: nein, er en­
solt es nut tiln; er solte sin Brot mit sinem Sweisse gewinnen sinem edelen turen
Bliite ze eren." (I know a most honorable friend of God, who has been a plowman
all his days, forty years and more, and still is such. And he once asked Our Lord if
He wished that he should betake himself to attend the church. He [Christ] replied
that he should not do so. Rather should he earn his bread with his sweat and in this
fashion honor His [Christ's] precious blood.)
49. Hans Rosenpliit, "Der Bauern Lob," in Der Bauer im deutschen Liede, pp.
109-12; also in Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 217, pp.
549-52. ..
50. "Der Bauernlob" ("Das Gedicht vom ersten Edelman"), in Tettau, "Uber
einige bis jetzt unbekannte Erfurter Drucke," p. 321:
So ist denn och kein Fiirst so lobeleich,
der sich dem Paurn mag gleich
Der Paur ist wol ein Edelman,
wer das rechtlich erkennen kann.
Wann alles, das in der werlt lebt,
alles nach des Paurn arbeit strebt.
51. Ibid., p. 325:

(You should know that there is Es wer gut das mancher ein Paur blib,
nothing so unpleasant ["sour"] as is vii grosser silnd er vermid,
the nature of a peasant, for when Die sunst all werden volpracht,
he attempts to rise to a higher sta­ bey tag und auch bey nacht,
tion he is greedy and false, be sure Mit miissig geen, trincken und mit essen;
of that.) darmit wirt got des Herren vergessen.
Die Paurn kumen gen kirchen selten,
I am grateful to Geert Claassens, of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, for his gen­ doch lest sichs got nit entgelten;
erous help in interpreting these lines. Filr ir arbeit gibt er yn lon,
43. On Joan and her image, see Warner, Joan ofArc; and Wood, Joan ofArc, gesunden leib und die ewige kron.
pp. 125-51.
44. Although commonly imagined as tending sheep in Domremy, Joan was 52. Virgil, Georgics, no. 2, vv. 458-74, trans. Fairclough (LCL 63, p. 149).
quite concerned to emphasize at her trial that she never herded animals of any sort 53. Horace, Odes and Epodes, no. 2, trans. Bennett (LCL 33, p. 365).
(Wood, Joan ofArc, p. 132). 54. Cited in Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 571.
45. Grandeau, Jeanne insultee. 55. Petrarch, De remediis, bk. 1, no. 57 (1: 53), "De fertilitate terrae." T he Virgilian
 Notes to Chapter 9 378 Notes to Chapter 9 379

reference to justice and the rustics appears again in the remedies for misfortune and is Leident sy es gedultlichleiche
immediately followed by the statement that the first man born of human seed {Cain) Die armuet ist ir vech fewer,
was a farmer and a parricide (see above, Chapter 4, note 34). Es were in schade, wer sy in tewer.
56. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "The Clerk's Tale," vv. 199-203: Es ist ein zaichen das sy sint
Die aus erwelten Gotes chint
Ther stood a throp [hamlet], of site delitable, Dew Got im selwen haben wil;
In which that povre folk of that village Durch das muessen sy vii
Hadden hir bestes and hir herbergage, Hie churner leiden und arbait.
And of hir labour took hir sustenance Der Gotes sun auch <lurch sy leit
After that th' erthe yaf hem habundance. Angst und not ein miechel tail.
57. Specht, Poetry and the Iconography ofthe Peasant, p. 58. Armuet ist der selen hail.
58. Merlini, Satira contro ii villano, pp. 46-47. (They must suffer patiently,
59. Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.1.19, cited in Schreiner, "Zur biblischen poverty is their hell, but through
Legitimation des Adels," p. 322. this pain they become worthy. It
60. Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium 2.61, (p. 429). is a sign that they are God's cho­
61. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 574. sen children, whom God himself
62. See above, Chapter 3, p. 78. wants to have. Through this they
63. Augustine, Confessiones 8.8. must suffer many hurts and work.
64. Jerome, Epistola 52, chap. 9 (CSEL 54, p. 431): "Nee rusticus et tantum sim­ God's Son also suffered, because
plex frater ideo se sanctum putet, si nihil nouerit, nee peritus et eloquens in lingua of them, fear and need in great
aestimet sanctitatem. Multoque melius est e duobus inperfectis rusticitatem sanctam measure. Poverty is the salvation
habere quam eloquentiam peccatricem." Medieval examples of sancta rusticitas ap­ of the soul.)
plied literally to the peasantry include lines from the twelfth-century poem "De di­
69. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv. 3807-10 {BLVS 247, 1: 157):
versis ordinibus hominum," formerly attributed to Walter Map: "Ruralis conditio
merito laudatur; / nam sancta rusticitas jure veneratur" {Map, Latin Poems Com­ Swer rich wil werden in himelriche,
monly Attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 235). Der lebe uf erden jemerlkhe
Felix Hemmerli denied that Jerome or Augustine meant anything favorable about Und ahte niht vii ob man in smehe,
the rustics of their time. Answering the peasant's citations, the knight exclaims: "O Wil er sich ewiger froude nehe.
sancta rusticitas per te fraudulenter allegata'' {Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate,
cap. 2, fol. 7V). {He who desires wealth in heaven
should live wretchedly on earth,
For the use of Jerome's formulation by the fifteenth-century Carthusian Werner
and not take account of his mis­
Rolevinck, see below, note 140 for this chapter.
65. P. Brown, "Relics and Social Status," pp. 230-33; idem, Cult ofthe Saints, pp. treatment if he hopes to approach
eternal joy.)
119-20; Kobler, '"Bauer' (agricola, colunus, rusticus) im Friihmittelalter," especially p.
240. But Gregory of Tours also referred to the individual rusticus with favor; see be­ 70. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 574.
low, note 89 for this chapter. 71. Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium 2.61 (p. 429): "D.-Quid de agrico­
66. Martin of Braga, "De correctione rusticorum." lis? M.-Ex magna parte salvantur, quia simpliciter vivunt et populum Dei suo sudore
67. Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger, p. 88: "Quintum genus per quintum filium pascant, ut dicitur: 'Labores manuum suarum qui manducant beati sunt' [Psalm 127,
figuratur, ut sunt agricole, qui tam dilecti filii dei sunt tum propter laborem contin­ 2]." Shortly before this passage, Honorius has the Master observe that the vast major­
uum, qui deo placet, tum propter oppressionem, qua a dominis opprimuntur in­ ity of knights, however, are damned since they live off of plundering and destruction.
iuste." See also Martini, Das Bauerntum, p. 113. The wrath of God will fall upon them (Psalm 72:30), he says at 2.54 {p. 427).
68. Heinrich von Burgus, Der Seele Rat, vv. 2791-828 {pp. 53-54), 1::sp. vv. 72. Honorius Augustodunensis, Speculum Ecclesie-Sermo Genera/is in PL 172:
2791-801: 866-67.
 Notes to Chapter 9 380
73. Honorius Augustodunensis, Imago mundi 3.1 (p. 125).
74. A similar belief that peasants are more likely than other laymen to be re­
deemed, but with the simultaneous evaluation of labor as suffering in expiation of
Adam's sin, is found in sermons of Humbert of Romans, discussed in van den
Hoven, \:%rk in Ancient and Medieval Thought, pp. 235-37.
75. Etienne de Fougeres, Le Livre des manieres, vv. 705-12 (p. 85). See above,
Chapter 4-
76. Berthold von Regensburg, Vollstiindige Ausgabe seiner Predigten 1: 14: "Si:t er
dir nu ein niderez hat gegeben, so soltt1 dich ouch nideren unde demileten durch got
mit dinem amte, so wil er dir oben uf dem himel ein vil hohez amt geben." (Since
he has given you now a low place, you should also lower and humble yourself before
God in your station, so will he give you a much higher place in heaven.)
77. Ibid., p. 358: "Da was im der acker alse liep, diu heilige kirstenheit, daz er in
nieman wolte lazen buwen, und er hat den pfluoc selber gehabt aller engele herre.
Ein pfluoc muoz von isin und von holz sin; also was daz heilige kruize von holze,
unde von isin die nagele, die im da giengen durch hende unde durch fileze, und also
habte er den pfluoc, unze er den tot dar an nam." (So dear to Him was the field, 0
Holy Christianity, that he did not wish for anyone else to work it. He put His own
hand to the plow, the Lord of all the angels. A plow must be made of iron and wood;
thus also was the holy cross made of wood while the nails, that went through His
hands and feet, were of iron. T hus He took up the plow until He assumed death.)
78. Schonbach, Studien zur Geschichte, Sitzungsberichte 155, pp. 53, 89; Sitzungs­
berichte 154, p. 122.
79. Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger, p. 90: "[rustici] qui frumenta laborant, estu
uruntur, gelu frigent, de quorum laboribus uiuit omnis populus; [si] cauerent isti de
furto, mendacio, periurio et his similibus, sancti fierent." P. 92: "Quantum ue sit eis
in laboribus! Utinam non peccarent in ebrietate, periurio, mendacio et turpitudine
uerborum. Vere beati fierent."
80. Ibid., p. 89.
81. Cited in Batany, "1:-,es pauvres et la pauvrete," pp. 478-79.
82. Juan Manuel, Libro de los estados 1.98 (pp. 204-5).
83. Poesia critica y satirica def siglo XV, p. 59:
Si vuestro trabajo foe siempre sin arte,
non faziendo surco en la tierra ajena
en la gloria eternal habredes gran parte,
e por el contrario sufriredes pena.
(If your labor is always performed
without deception, not plowing fur­
rows in another's land, you will have a
great share in the eternal glory, but if
not [i.e., if you do not act well), you
will suffer pain.)
Notes to Chapter 9 381
84. Buch der Rugen, vv. 1439-1603 (pp. 86-88).
85. Peter of Blois, De Hierosolymitana peregrinatione acceleranda, in PL 207: 1069,
cited in Mollat, Poor in the Middle Ages, pp. 73-74.
86. Raymond de Aguylhers, Historia Francorum, pp. 253-55.
87. Jacques de Vi try, Exempla or Illustrative Stories, no. 108, p. 50.
88. On the implications and use of this passage, see Schreiner, "Zur biblischen
Legitimation des Adels."
89. Gregory of Tours, Vitae patrum 5 (MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum
1, p. 667): "Praefecit enim de hac mundane aegrestate in caelo, quo scandere non po­
tuit terrenum imperium, ut accedit illuc rusticus, quo accedere non meruit purpura­
tus." While Gregory often uses rusticitas to mean lack of reverence, here the rusticus is
clearly a humble country-dweller if not a person of very precise status; c£ Martin of
Braga, "De correctione rusticorum."
90. Hrabanus Maurus, carmina II, vv. 37-40; carmina 14, vv. 13-14 (MGH Po­
etae Latini aevi Carolini 2, pp. 174, 177), cited in Bosl, "Potens und Pauper," p. 121.
91. MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini, vol. 4, fascicle 2, p. 536, cited in Bosl,
"Potens und Pauper," p. 127:
Gaudent potentes dum adquirunt munera,
Mendici dolent prae famis inopia,
Post finem vero divites in tartara,
Qui consumserunt orfanorum lacrimas,
Pauperi autem pergant ad sublimia.
92. Gautier de Coincy, "De la misere d'homme et de femme," cited in Batany,
"Les pauvres et la pauvrete," pp. 479-80.
93. Paris, Bibliotheque National, MS Frans;ais u48, fols. 1r-1v.
94. Ibid., fols. 33v-34r: "Et pourtant mes biaux laboureurs et mes biaux amys, je
vous prye et vous conseille que continuellement labourez . . . car vous estes en la voye
pour saillir le plustost et le plus ligerement de ce miserable monde au royaulme des
cieulx." (However, my good laborers and friends, I pray and counsel you that you la­
bor unceasingly . . . for you are on the way to leave earliest and most easily this mis­
erable world for the kingdom of heaven.)
95. Schonbach, Studien zur Geschichte, Sitzungsberichte 155, p. 53.
96. Vauchez, La saintete en occident, pp. 324-26. See also Coulton, Medieval Vil-
lage, pp. 239, 241, 253, 526-27; Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture, pp. 39-77.
97. Tazbir, "Cult of St. Isidore," p. 99, citing Sorokin's Altruistic Love.
98. Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, table on p. 197.
99. Vauchez, La saintete en occident, pp. 209-10; Klaniczay, "Paradoxes of Royal
Sainthood."
100. A somewhat parallel situation of spiritual privilege without sainthood ex­
isted in Iberia, where no saints at all were canonized between n98 and 1431, a time
when the Reconquest was in progress and the Spanish kings enjoyed exceptional
prestige and power over their churches, which a grateful papacy did not choose to
 Notes to Chapter 9 382 Notes to Chapter 9 383

contest. Vauchez attributes this lack of saints to the hostilities between Aragon-Cat­ Och vollen kasten moechte han
alonia and the papacy during the Albigensian Crusade, but this would hardly explain Nach sinem willen voelleklich.
the entire period, nor would it hold much significance for Castile. (Vauchez, La sain­ (Maria often reflected on why her
tete en occident, pp. 318-24.) It was possible for an entire nation to enjoy high spiritual Son came into this world, alone
status without producing saints. among us so poor, so that the
IOI. Tazbir, "Cult of St. Isidore," pp. 100-101. weight of His death would benefit
102. Cahier, Characteristiques des saints, p. 690; Acta Sanctorum, Oct., 7: no7, all of us. And the withered white
III7, lII9. corn, lost and thrown away, would
103. Tazbir, "Cult of Saint Isidore," pp. 99-103. grow and bear fruit, bestowing
104. Ibid., pp. 107-n. good on us all. And the faithful
105. See above, Chapter I, notes 20-22. peasant thus would provide rich
106. See above, Chapter 1, note 23. fields according to His perfect
107. Barney, "Plowshare of the Tongue," p. 268. John'Cassian (died 435), in his will.)
Collationes, likened the disciplined life of religious contemplation to the endurance
of the plowman in his veritable "frenzy of work," but this analogy appears along with n5. Muskarblur, Lieder, song no. 28, st. 3 (p. 79).
references to other callings that evoke effort and persistence, those of the soldier and n6. Peter Frey, "Vom Edlen Bawman," in Das Ambraser Liederbuch vom Jahre
the merchant. See Kirk, "Langland's Plowman," pp. 10-n. I582, song no. 133, vv. 39-45 (BLVS 12, p. 160):
108. See above, Chapter I, note 86. According to a humerous English monastic
Der keyser solt sich gen dem bawman neigen
text, it was Ham who invented the plow. See Dean, The World Grown Old, p. 133.
als ich im evangelio wil zeigen,
109. Camille, "Labouring for the Lord"; Reiss, "Symbolic Plow and Plowman."
wie denn Chrisms selbs gesprochen hat,
no. Reiss, "Symbolic Plow and Plowman," p. 16.
ich bin ein guter hirt secht an,
III. Berthold von Regensburg, Vollstandige Ausgabe seiner Predigten 1: 358; Bede,
mein vater ist ein ackerman,
In Lucae Evangelium expositio 3.9 (CC 120, p. 213), cited in Reiss, "Symbolic Plow
wir christen sollen kein zweiffel han,
and Plowman," p. 17.
Gott selber sich dem bawman gleichen there.
n2. Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, p. 239 n. 61. Reiss, "Symbolic
Plow and Plowman," p. 16, points out that as early as Clement of Alexandria in the (T he emperor should bow before the peasant;
third century (and frequently thereafter) "the plow" was one of the names or titles and I shall prove by the Gospels that Christ
given to Christ. himself has spoken: Behold, I am a good shep­
n3. Hartmann von Aue, Der arme Heinrich, vv. 775-93 (pp. 45-46), cited in herd, my father is a plowman; we Christians
Reiss, "Symbolic Plow and Plowman," pp. 16-17. should not doubt it, God likened himself to a
n4. Das Marienleben des Schweizers Wernher, vv. 1264r59 (p. 208): peasant. [Gudde, Social Conflicts, p. 108))

Maria die gedacht och vil dar an n7. Reiss, "Symbolic Plow and Plowman," p. 16.
War umb ir sun uf erde kam: n8. See Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, illus. 212, p. 285.
Allain umb uns vii armen. n9. T his contradiction or shift is explored by Aers, "Piers Plowman," in his Com­
Die wurdent si erbarmen, muniry, Gender, and Individual ldentiry, pp. 35-72.
So das seines rodes burde 120. References are to A. V. C. Schmidt's edition of the B Text: Langland, The
Uns alien micze wurde Vision of "Piers Plowman. "
Und das erstorben weisen korn, 121. Cited in A. Baldwin, "Historical Context," p. 68.
Sam hin geworfen und verlorn, 122. Kirk, "Langland's Plowman," pp. 1-3.
Mir aller frucht uf gienge, 123. Langland, "Piers Plowman':· The CText, pp. 108-9; Hudson, "Epilogue"; Jus­
Sin mengelich nucz enphienge, tice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 102-39, 231-51. See below, Chapter n, p. 266.
Und der getruwe human 124. Aers, Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination, pp. 1-37.
125. Aers, "Justice and Wage-Labor," pp. 171-73.
 Notes to Chapter 9 384 Notes to Chapter IO 385
126. Aers, Community, Gender, and Individual Identity, pp. 36-48. 149. On Luther and the image of the pious peasant, see ibid., pp. 95-106,
127. Langland, Piers Plowman, B, VII.100-105; C, XIl.194-209; C, XIIl.79-92, 165-76.
all cited in A. Baldwin, "Historical Context," p. 72. 150. Ibid., pp. 176-77.
128. Aers, Community, Gender, and Individual Identity, pp. 54-68. 151. Ibid., p. 97.
129. Kirk, "Langland's Plowman," p. 11. 152. Ibid., pp. II7-25; Scribner, "Images of the Peasant," p. 30; Brackert,
130. Wheatley, "A Selfless Ploughman." Bauernkrieg und Literatur, pp. 30-35.
131. Translated in G. Williams, Burning Tree, pp. 106-II, cited in Kirk, "Lang­ 153. Sider, Andreas von Bodenstein von Karlstadt, p. 137.
land's Plowman," p. 12, and in Holdsworth, "Blessings ofWork," pp. 72-73. 154. Scribner, "Images of the Peasant," pp. 36-37; Radbruch and Radbruch, Der
132. Johannes von Saaz, Der Ackermann aus Bohmen; Johannes von Tepl, Der deutsche Bauernstand, pp. 67-71.
Ackermann; and most recently Johannes de Tepla, Epistola cum Libello Ackerman. T he 155. Packull, "Image of the 'Common Man,"' pp. 262-63.
author was from Tepl (modern Tepla) but served for many years as town clerk of 156. Ibid., pp. 264-67; Scribner, "Images of the Peasant," p. 31.
Saaz, hence the two names. A useful summary of the various points in question con­ 157. See above, note 69 for this chapter.
cerning this work is provided by Hahn, Der Ackermann.
133. T his is the thesis of Hruby, Der "Ackermann" und seine Vorlage. On the text
see Bertau, Die Handschrift Stuttgart, Walshe, "Der Ackermann aus Bohmen"; and Chapter IO
idem, "Some Notes on Der Ackermann aus Bohmen."
1. Usatges de Barcelona, cap. II (us. 3), p. 60: "Rusticus interfectus seu alius homo
134. Martini, Das Bauerntum, pp. 214-19.
qui nullam habet dignitatem, preter quod christianus est, emendetur per .VI. uncias."
135. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue, vv. 529-40. See Horrell,
2. Freedman, Origi,ns ofPeasant Servitude, pp. 86-88.
"Chaucer's Symbolic Plowman."
3. On this subject in general, see Bisson, "Medieval Lordship."
136. Quoted in Uhrig, "Der Bauer in der Publizistik," p. 90.
4. Legislation of the Corts (parliament) of Cervera, 1202, in Les constitucions de
137. See above, Chapter 1, pp. 36-37.
. . pau i treva de Catalunya, p. 127: "Ibidem, eciam inviolabiliter constituit quod si do­
138. See the examples of a capital at Vezelay and stained glass from St. Dems m
mini suos rusticos maletractaverint, vel sua eis abstulerint . . . nullo modo teneantur
Aston, "Corpus Christi and Corpus Regni," pp. 27-31.
domino regi in aliquo, nisi sint de feudo domini regis vel religiosorum locorum." On
139. Described and illustrated in Scribner, "Images of the Peasant," pp. 32-33.
this right of mistreatment and its exercise, see my essay "Catalan /us Maletractandi,"
140. Rolevinck, De regimine rusticorum, pp. 86-90, 144. T hat peasants have
in Freedman, Church, Law, and Society; Martinez, "Violencia sefi.orial.".
knowledge denied by God to the wise is also the theme of a sermon delivered in 1419
5. Li Livre de Justice et de Plet, cited in Anex, Le servage au Pays de Vaud, p. 105.
by Joh-? Zelivsky, a radical Hus�ite pr�acher and political le�der in Prague. _Accord­
6. Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, chap. 45, par. 1452, trans. Akehurst,
ing to Zelivsky, the learned Pharisees did �ot know why C� nst conso�te� with p�b­ p. 518.
_ ,
licans and sinners (Mark 2:16), but the vilam understood: Ecce mag1str1 autem 1g­
7. M. Bloch, "Blanche de Castile."
noraverunt quare sedit in mensa cum peccatoribus, sed vilani non ignoraver�nt";
8. Vidal Mayor, p. 510.
cited in Kaminsky, History ofthe Hussite Revolution, pp. 275-76 n. 45. On Rolevmck,
9. Ruprecht von Freising, Preisinger Rechtsbuch, chap. 46, p. 52. On the laws of
see Henn, "Der Bauernspiegel desWerner Rolevinck"; and Martini, Das Bauerntum,
Alfred, see Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England, p. 84.
pp. 233-37.
. . 10. See the discussion by Bonnassie, "Marc Bloch, Historian of Servitude," in
141. Rolevinck, De regimine rusticorum, pp. 144-45; Mamm, Das Bauerntum,
Bonnassie, From Slavery to Feudalism, pp. 330-34.
p. 234.
II. Ibid., p. 333.
142. Rolevinck, De regimine rusticorum, p. 107.
12. Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History 6: 348.
143. Packull, "Image of the 'Common Man,"' pp. 258-60, 267-72.
13. Bisson, "Crisis of the Catalonian Franchises"; Gari, "Las querimoniae
144. Ibid., p. 259.
feudales."
145. Ibid., p. 260.
14. Bonnassie, La Catalogn e 2: 590.
146. Gruenbeck, Spiegel fol. [5r]. T his does not appear in the Nuremberg 1508
15. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 32, fol. 124r; Brunner, Land and
edition.
Lordship, cited in Bue, L'ambiguite du livre, p. 200.
147. Scribner, "Images of the Peasant," illus. 2 and 3, pp. 31, 34-37.
16. Sivery, "Le Moyen Age a+il connu des communautes rurales silencieuses et
148. Uhrig, "Der Bauer in der Publizistik," pp. 184-88.
soumises?"
 Notes to Chapter Io 386
17. Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp. 103-6; Hatcher, "English Serfdom and
Villeinage," pp. 22-26.
18. Examples in Dyer, "Memories of Freedom," pp. 280-83.
19. Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude; P. Blickle, "Peasant Revolts"; William
Jordan, From Servitude to Freedom.
20. Monuments de l'histoire de l'ancien eveche de Bale 5: 886: "et s'il me plaisait je
te pourroye prendre par le pied et te mener vendre au marche."
21. Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, pp. 224-25.
22. Schmidt, Ius Primae Noctis.
23. Monuments de l'histoire de l'ancien eveche de Bale 5: 887-88; Boureau, Le droit
de cuissage, p. 164.
24. Boureau, Le droit de cuissage, pp. 216-26.
25. Ibid., pp. n8-35. Boureau points out, however, that the droit de cuissage never
appears in the fabliaux (pp. 179-80).
26. Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude, pp. 79-83, 103-10.
27. El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo d.II.15, fols. 27r-31v, edited in
Hinojosa, El regimen senorial p. 318: " Item, pretenen alguns senyors, que com lo
pages pren muller lo senyor ha de dormir la primera nit ab ella, e en senyal de senyo­
ria, lo vespre que lo pages deu fer noces esser la mullel colgada, ve lo senyor e munte
en lo lit pessant de sobre la dit adona, e com ac;o sia infructuos al senyor e gran subi­
ugatio al pages mal eximpli e occasio de mal demanen suppliquen totalament esser
lavat." (Item, certain lords claim that when the peasant takes a woman, the lord has
to sleep the first night with her, and [or?] as a symbol of lordship, the eve of the wed­
ding, when the woman is lying in bed, climb into the bed and pass over the said
woman. And as this is of no profit to the lord and a great subjugation of the peasant,
a bad example and occasion for wickedness, they [the peasants] demand and suppli­
cate its complete removal.)
28. See Wettlaufer, "Jus primae noctis," pp. 246-50.
29. The Sentence of Guadalupe, edited in Vives, Historia de los remensas, p. 342,
employs the same wording (this time in Castilian) as the 1462 negotiations: "Ni tam­
poco puedan [i.e., los seniores] la primera noche quel pages prende mujer dormir con
ella o en sen.al de senyoria la noche de las bodas de que la muger sera echada en la
cama pasar encima de aquella sobre la dicha muger." (Neither have they the right,
when a peasant takes a wife, to sleep the first night with her, nor, as a sign of lord­
ship, to pass over her on her wedding night as she lies in bed.)
30. Hinojosa, El regimen senorial app. II, pp. 313-23, especially chap. 6 and chap.
7 (pp. 317-18).
31. Barros, "Rito y violaci6n," considers these incidents and complaints evidence
of a ius primae noctis, but see Boureau's response, Le droit de cuissage, pp. 264-67.
32. Cabrera and Moros, Fuenteovejuna.
33. Franz, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, 7th ed., pp. u-13.
34. German Peasants' �r: A History in Documents, pp. 73-78.
Notes to Chapter IO 387
35. Die Kemptener Leibeigenschaftsrodel.
36. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 27, pp. 128-29.
37. W. Muller, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung," pp. 3-4.
38. P. Blickle, "Peasant Revolts," p. 232.
39. Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude, pp. 179-202.
40. Berce, "Offene Fragen der franzosischen Bauernrevolten."
41. Cited in Carpenter, "English Peasants in Politics" p. 344.
42. Cited in Buszello, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, p. 17: "nit wie die kye und kolber
verkouft werden, dieweil wir alle nur ein herren, das ist got den herrn im hymel, habe."
43. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 94, p. 301: "Zu den 8.
[i.e., the eighth article of their grievance list] haben sich Geistlich und Weltlich
fravenlich wider Got aufgeworfen, und sich trotzt gesetzt wider das Ewangeliumb,
und haben sich des Aigentumb angezogen, das allain Got mit Aigentumb zuegehort,
und die Menschen fur aigen under sich wellen biegen und schmuckhen und bei der
Nesen in ir Geltnetz wellen ziehen . . . so wellen si mit armen Leudten Gwalt haben
als ainer uber sein Vieh und noch vii tiranischer."
44. Ibid., no. 27, p. 129.
45. Luther, Freedom ofa Christian, pp. 27r316; idem, Admonition to Peace, pp.
17-43 (especially the response to the peasants' third article against serfdom, p. 39);
and idem, Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes ofPeasants, pp. 49-55.
46. As pointed out by Kirchner, Luther and the Peasants' �r, p. 26.
47. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 1.153 (PL 34: 589-90).
48. Smaragdus, Via Regia 30 (PL 102: 967-68); Agobard of Lyons, Epistola ad
proceres palatii, in PL 104: 177; Jonas of Orleans, De institutione laicali 2.22 (PL 106:
213); Atto of Vercelli, Expositio in Epistolas Pauli, chap. 6 (PL 134: 583).
49. Smaragdus, Via regia 30 (PL 102: 968): "Vere obedire debet homo Deo, et
ejus praeceptis, in quantum ille possibilitatem dederit, obedire. Et inter alia praecepta
salutaria, et opera recta, propter nimiam illius charitatem unusquisque liberos debet
dimittere servos, considerans quia non illi eos natura subegit, sed culpa; conditione
enim aequaliter creati sumus, sed aliis alii culpa subacti." Atto of Vercelli, Expositio
in Epistolas Pauli, chap. 6 (PL 134: 583): "non natura, sed iniquitas fecit. Servi enim
non a Cham, cujus maledictio in Chananaeis impleta est, ex quo reges orti sunt, sed
ab injustitia, et mundi iniquitate facti sunt."
50. Le livre des serfi de Marmoutier. For a recent discussion of what sorts of per­
sons actually gave themselves to the monastery and for what purposes, see Bar­
thelemy, "Les auto-deditions en servage."
51. Rollason, "Miracles of St. Benedict," pp. 78-79.
52. Sachsenspiegel Landrecht 3.42.6 (p. 228): "Na rechter warheit so hevet egen­
scap begin van dwange unde van venknisse under van unrechter gewalt, de men van
aldere in unrechte gewonheit getogen hevet unde nu vor recht hebben wel." (In ac­
tual truth serfdom has its origin in coercion and captivity and in unjust force, which
in former times were regarded as unjust custom, but now are taken as lawful.)
 Notes to Chapter IO 388
53. Schwabenspiegel Kureform, Landrecht 308 (p.387).
54. On this distinction between relative and absolute natural law,see Bierbrauer,
"Das Gottliche Recht," pp.222-26.
55. Gregory I, Moralia in job 2 1.15.22 (CC 143A, p. 1082): "Omnes namque
homines natura aequales sumus....Et cum Noe Dominus filiisque eius diceret:
Crescite et multiplicamini et implete terram, subdidit: Et terror uester ac tremor sit super
cuncta animalia terrae. Non enim ait: Sit super homines,qui futuri sunt; sed: Sit su­
per cuncta animalia terrae." C£ Augustine,De civitate Dei 19.15.
56. See above,Chapter 3,note 88.
57. Sturner,Peccatum und Potestas, pp. 106,II2, 15 1.
58. Oswald of Lasko, Sermones de sanctis, unfoliated, sermon no. 50 (for Saint
Ladislas): "O stulticia humana.0 fatuitas maxima appetere dominari quam naturalis
conditio nostra suadet fugiendam. Nam natura omnes homines equales fecit quam
non preposuit hominem homini nisi per rationis abusum peccando se faciat bru­
tum ...uncle Greg.in Moral.Non est data homini prelatio ut dominetur hominibus
sed ut presit bestiis terre piscibus maris et volatibus celi." Sermon no.6 1 (On Saint James
the Apostle), to Matthew 20:2 1-22, concerning the dangers of ambition: "natura
omnes homines equalis conditionis fecit,non ei fecit unum Adam de auro,alium de
argento,tercium de luto,sed omnes de luto ne aliquis alteri preferret ...Hine Greg.
in Moral. Non est data homine prelatio ut dominetur hominibus sed ut presit bestiis
terre." Sermon no. 32 (for Gregory the Great): "quod est contra illos qui rusticos
etiam bonos reputant quasi bruta."
59. This association was manifested in many forms,such as the Middle English
"Charters of Christ," wherein Christ's sacrifice is allegorized as a charter granting sal­
vation and liberty to humanity.See Spalding,Middle English Charters ofChrist. Many
of the manuscripts of the so-called "Short Charter " of Christ bear titles of colophons
such as Carta Redempcionis humanae or, in one instance (London, British Library,
MS Sloane 3292,fol.2),Magn,a Carta de libertatibus Mundi. I thank Emily Steiner,of
Yale University,for this reference.
60. Gregory I, Registrum epistolarum 6.12 (CC 140, p. 380): "Cum redemptor
noster totius conditor creaturae ad hoc propitiatus humanam uoluit carnem as­
sumere,ut diuinitatis suae gratia, disrupto quo tenebamur capti uinculo seruitutis,
pristinae nos restiueret libertati,salubriter agitur,si homines,quos ab initio natura
liberos protulit et ius gentium iugo substituit seruitutis,in ea qua nati fuerant manu­
mittentis beneficio libertate reddantur."
6 1. Gratian,Decretum, C.12 q.2 c.68.
62. M.Bloch,Rois et serfi, p. 140.
63. Adam of Eynsham, "Vision of the Monk of Eynsham," chap. 4 1, p. 348:
"Seuientes enim carnifices hec ei improperabant,insultantes preterea uehementis­
sime quia in ulcionem ferarum irracionabilium, que de iure naturali communiter
omnibus cedere deberant, homines racione utentes & eodem sanguine Christi re­
demptos & nature indifferentis parilitate consortes aut multasset leto aut membris
Notes to Chapter IO 389
diuersis crudeliter mutilasset." I thank Robert Bartlett,of the University of Saint An­
drews,for this reference.
64. Sachsenspiegel Landrecht 3.42.1 (p. 223): "Got hevet den man na eme selven
gebildet uncle hevet ene mit siner martere geledeget,den enen alse den anderen; eme
is de arme alse beswas alse de rike."
65. Schwabenspiegel Kurzform, Landrecht 308 (pp. 383-84): "Got hat den men­
schen nach im selber gepildet.des sol im der mensch genade sagen.er hat auch den
menschen mit seiner marter von der helle erlost."
66. Graus,'"Freiheit' als soziale Forderung," p.420.
67. Cited in Burdach, Der Dichter des Ackermann aus Bohmen 3: 63 n. 1: "ad
omnes principes saeculi christianos pertineat cunctum populum Christi sanguine
praetioso redemptum suis temporibus videre pacatum et debitis libertatibus,quas jus
et natura concessit,facere consolatum ...eo quod pasturam tenemus ab eo qui lib­
ertatis et pacis est princeps ...hujusmodi consuetudinem utpote ...superstitiosam,
legibus et canonibus et rationi naturali et juri divino,cui per consuetudinem derogari
non potest,contrariam."
68. Brock, Political and Social Doctrines, pp. 63-64; Chelcicky, "O torjim lidu
(On the Three Peoples)," pp. 137-67,especially p. 157.
69. Reformation Kaiser Siegmunds, MGH Staatsschriften des spateren Mittelal­
ters 6, p. 86: "so hat euch Cristus mit seinem tode gekaufft und gefreyet zu dem
ewigen leben."
70. Michael Seidlmayer,"Weltbild und Kultur Deutschlands im Mittelalter," in
Handbuch der Deutschen Geschichte, vol. 1 (Constance, 1957),p.66.
7 1. W Muller,"Wurzeln und Bedeutung," p.25.
72. German Peasants' "War: A History in Documents, no. 125,pp.254-55.
73. W Muller, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung," pp. 16-29; Bierbrauer, "Das Gott­
liche Recht," pp. 226-28. See also P. Blickle, "Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit," pp.
98- 102.
74. Cited in P. Blickle,"Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit," p. 100.
75. Girona, Arxiu Historic de l'Ajuntament, Secci6 25.2, Llibres manuscrits de
tema divers,lligall 1,MS 8,fols. 1r-2v,discussed and edited in Freedman, Origins of
Peasant Servitude, pp. 190-92,224-26.
76. Riera i Melis,"El bisbat de Girona," app.4,p.200: "Dignemi itaque,pater
clemens,ad exemplum Crucifixi,qui quos tenebat servitus antiquata a servitutis nex­
ibus liberavit, vestro generali edicto seu bulla sufficienti, statuere et rite etiam or­
dinare ut quicumque ex dictis oppressis se redimere a nexibus dicte servitutis voluerit
et abinde penitus liberare,servando ac cum effectu complendo formam et modum
redempcionis et liberacionis superius et inferius posite,possunt se redimere et total­
iter liberare."
77. Barcelona,Arxiu de la Corona d'Arag6,Cancelleria,Registre 1955,fol. 103v;
Registre 1968,fol. 12v,edited in Riera i Melis, "El bisbat de Girona," apps. 2 and 3,
pp. 19r98.
 Notes to Chapter IO 390 Notes to Chapter II 391

78. Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d'Arago, Cancelleria, Registre 1955, fols.

105v-106r, edited in Riera i Melis, "El bisbat de Girona," app. 2, p. 198: "E com ha­ Chapter II
jam entes que.l temps de la servitut en qual foren estrets e obligats tots los habitands
1. A useful and wide-ranging essay on late-medieval peasant movements and
e habitadors de Cathalunya la Veyla, c;o es, della. Lobregat . . . segons les croniques,
their ideological background is Graus, "'Freiheit' als soziale Forderung."
es ja passat e ac;o deja esser en lo nostro arxiu, manam-vos que de continent ho fac;ats
2. In general, see N. Cohn, Pursuit ofthe Millennium, pp. 191-280.
cerquar e certifficats-nos, per vostres letres, de c;o que.n trobarets." (And since we
3. TeBrake, Plague ofInsurrection, pp. 45-107. To judge from TeBrake's own de­
have understood that the time of servitude that binds and obligates the inhabitants of
scription, the rebellion seems to have been a protest against taxation and a reproach
Old Catalonia, i.e., this side of the Llobregat River, . . . has passed according to the
to the governing classes for their cowardice in paying a tribute to the French-more
chronicles, and this should be in our archive, we order you to search this out and cer­
an example of the failure of mutuality than a movement for a remade world.
tify to us by your letters what you have found.)
4. Strohm, Hochon's Arrow; Justice, Writing and Rebellion.
79. Correspondence edited in Fita, "Lo Papa Benet XIII."
5. M. Bloch, French Rural History, p. 170.
80. Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude, pp. 179-202.
6. See above, Chapter 3, p. 84.
81. I Corinthians 7:22: "For he that is called in the Lord being a bondman, is the
7. For peasant political involvement apart from revolt, see Carpenter, "English
freeman of the Lord. Likewise he that is called, being free, is the bondman of Christ."
Peasants in Politics"; and Goheen, "Peasant Politics?"
82. Strauss, Law, Resistance and the State, pp. 38-55.
8. T his point is emphasized in the study of peasant revolts of the High Middle
83. Bierbrauer, "Das Gottliche Recht," pp. 210-34.
Ages by Kohn, "Freiheit als Forderung."
84. Schwabenspiegel Kurzform, Landrecht 308 (p. 387): "wir sullen den hem dar
9. Bierbrauer, "Bauerliche Revolten," pp. 26, 62-65.
umb dienen das sy vns schirmen. vnd als sy die lant mit schirment so sind si nicht
10. Strohm, Hochon's Arrow, pp. 45-56; Aston, "Corpus Christi and Corpus
diensts schuldig. nach rechter barhait so hat sich aigenschaft erhaben uon getwange
Regni"; Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 156-76.
vnd uon fangknuss vnd uon manigen vnrechten gewalt den die hernn her uon alter
n. Brooks, "Organization and Achievements."
in vnrecht gewonhait habent gezogen vnd die hernn habent das nu fur recht." (We
12. Hilton, English Peasantry, p. 15.
should therefore serve lords who protect us, and if they do not protect the land, they
13. Especially important in this regard is Faith, "Great Rumour."
are not worthy of service. In truth servitude was established by coercion and captivity
14. Notably Hudson, "Piers Plowman and the Peasants' Revolt"; and Justice,
and by much unjust power that the lords have been accustomed to impose as unjust
Writing and Rebellion, pp. 67-139 (two chapters, "Wydif in the Rising" and "Piers
customs and that they now wish to be accepted as law.) Algazi, Herrengewalt, pp.
Plowman in the Rising"). See also Aston, "Corpus Christi and Corpus Regni," pp.
86-91, disputes the view that this indicates that lords must defend their tenants. Al­
33-47. Christina van Nokken acknowledges possible connections between Wyclif
gazi attaches the passage to what comes before, regarding the emperor's authority, and the Rising but not between Langland and Wyclif nor between Langland and the
rather than to what comes after, the power of lords over serfs. While I agree with Al­
Rising; see her " Piers Plowman," pp. 73-78.
gazi that there was no expectation in late-medieval Germany that lords would offer
15. Faith, "Great Rumour," pp. 62-70.
real benefits of defense to tenants, I regard the Schwabenspiegel as offering justifica­
16. Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 168-76; Faith, "Great Rumour," p. 66
tion for defying oppressive lords, especially those who impose servitude.
(translating from Walsingham's GestaAbbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani): "T hey took
85. Mieres, Apparatus 2: 513: "Rex etiam cum tota curia non potuit, neque potest
the stones outside and handed them over to the commons, breaking them into little
facere legem iniquam contra legem Dei, quae si facta foret, non valeret; nee esset lex,
pieces and giving a piece to each person, just as the consecrated bread is customa�ily
quia oportet, quod lex sit iusta et rationabilis."
broken and distributed in the parish churches on Sundays, so that the people, seemg
86. Chazan, "Deteriorating Image of the Jews," pp. 226-28; Langmuir, "Tortures
these pieces, would know themselves to be avenged against the abbey in that cause."
of the Body of Christ."
17. Dyer, "Social and Economic Background"; Strohm, Hochon's Arrow, pp. 35-39.
87. Peasant revolts linked to anti-Semitism include the Franconian Armleder
18. E.g., Davies, "Die bauerliche Gemeinde," pp. 41-44.
movement of 1336-39 (see K. Arnold, "Die Armlederbewegung in Franken 1336"),
19. See, e.g., the case of Essex in Poos, Rural Society After the Black Death, pp.
the pogroms that took place in Catalonia in 1391 (Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servi­
231-52.
tude, p. 182), and those that occurred during the Hungarian revolt in 1514 (Monu­
20. On the English Rising and its causes, see Dyer, "Social and Economic Back­
menta rusticorum, no. 80, p. 122). On popular insurrection and violence against lepers
ground," pp. 9-42; Fryde and F ryde, "Peasant Rebellion"; Hilton, Bondmen Made
and Jews, see Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, pp. 43-124.
Free; and Hatcher, "England in the Aftermath of the Black Death."
88. Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli, p. 3.
21. Massive documentation is contained in Putnam, Enforcement ofthe Statutes.
 Notes to Chapter II 392
22. Tillotson, "Peasant Unrest," p. 14.
23. Dyer, "Social and Economic Background," p. 25.
24. Hilton, "Peasant Movements in England Before 1381," in his Class Conflict,
pp. 122-38; Hanawalt, "Peasant Resistance," pp. 30-40.
25. Carpenter, "English Peasants in Politics," pp. 325-26.
26. Ibid., p. 342; Hilton, ''A Thirteenth-Century Poem on Disputed Villein Ser­
vices," in his Class Conflict, pp. 108-13.
27. On these disputes and the uprising of 1336, see Ledger-Book of Vale Royal
Abbey, pp. 37-42. This passage is reprinted in several sources: Coulton, Medieval Vil­
lage, pp. 132-35; Peasants' Revolt of IJ8I, pp. 80-83; Hallam, "Life of the People,"
pp. 846-49.
28. Examples cited in Dyer, "Social and Economic Background," p. 31.
29. Faith, "Great Rumour"; Tillotson, "Peasant Unrest."
30. Dyer, "Social and Economic Background," pp. 34-35; Nichols, "Early Four­
teenth Century Petition." Tillotson, "Peasant Unrest," pp. 7-8, notes the importance
of Wiltshire in the 1377 disturbances, a region that was relatively quiet in 1381.
31. Hilton, Class Conflict, pp. 127-38. On the centrality of the demand for the
end to serfdom, see also Hilton's essays "Social Concepts of the English Rising of
1381" and "Popular Movements in England at the End of the Fourteenth Century,"
both in his Class Conflict, pp. 216-26 and 152-64.
32. Walsingham, Historia Anglicana 2: 33, and idem, Chronicon Angliae, p. 321.
33. Aston, "Corpus Christi and Corpus Regni," pp. 19-21, 26-33.
34. Justice, Writing and Rebellion, p. 36.
35. A point argued strongly in Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 43-51.
36. Strohm, Hochon's Arrow, p. 44.
37. Walsingham, Gesta abbatum monasterii Snacti Albani 1: 147-52, 3: 70-74.
38. Justice, Writing and Rebellion, p. 47.
39. Ibid., pp. 49-50.
40. Ibid., pp. 82-90.
41. Ibid., pp. n8-39.
42. Walsingham, Chronicon Angliae, p. 287.
43. Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 140-92; Strohm, Hochon's Arrow, pp.
51-56.
44. The different approaches are summarized in Justice, Writing and Rebellion,
pp. 258-61.
45. Froissart, Chroniques 10.97-107, trans. John Bourchier, Lord Berners, repro-
duced in Peasants' Revolt of I38I, pp. 369-72.
46. Bulst, "'Jacquerie' und 'Peasants' Revolt."'
47. As shown in Medeiros, Jacques et chroniqueurs.
48. Freedman, Origins ofPeasant Servitude, pp. 56-n8.
49. On the war, see Vives, Historia de Los remensas; and Sobreques i Vidal and So­
breques i Callic6, La guerra civil catalana.
50. Girona, Arxiu Historic de l'Ajumament, Secci6 XXV.2, Llibres manuscrits
Notes to Chapter II 393
de tema divers, lligall 1, MS 8, fols. u-2v, edited in Freedman, Origi.ns ofPeasant
Servitude, pp. 224-26.
51. See above, Chapter IO, pp. 253-55.
52. The course of this war and its aftermath are laid out in the documents as­
sembled in Monumenta rusticorum. There is very little on the war in languages other
than Hungarian, but see Barta, "Der ungarische Bauernkrieg"; Gunst, "Der un­
garische Bauernaufstand von 1514"; and Housely, "Crusading as Social Revolt." On
the Hungarian peasants' war, I have been helped immeasurably by Janos Bak and Ga­
bor Klaniczay, of the Central European University in Budapest.
53. On the execution and its later iconography, see Birnbaum, "Mock Calvary in
1514?"
54- Bati, "Montaignes Aufzeichnung." Montaigne thought the incident had oc-
curred in Poland.
55. Birnbaum, "Mock Calvary in 1514?"
56. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 202, p. 260.
57. This argument had been made earlier, on the occasion of the Belgrade Cru­
sade of 1456, in which a successful peasant army denounced the absence of the nobil­
ity. The events of this crusade were observed by Giovanni de Tagliacozzo, who re­
ported the anger against the nobility in his "Victoriae mirabilis," 793.
58. On rural conditions before 1514, see Szekely, "Le passage a I' economie basee";
Barta, "Der ungarische Bauernkrieg," pp. 63-69; and Pach, "Die Stellung des un­
garischen Bauernkrieges."
59. Kiraly, "Neo-Serfdom in Hungary''; Bak, Konigtum und Stande, p. n9 n. 47.
60. Werblfczy Istvan Hdrmaskonyve, pt. 1, tit. 3, pp. 56, 58; and pt. 3, tit. 25, p.
406. The material from part 1 on the supposed Hunnic origins of servitude is ex­
cerpted in Bak, Konigtum und Stande, p. 164, and in R. Hoffmann, "Outsiders by
Birth and Blood," p. 27.
61. Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, pp. 331-38; idem, "Die oppositionelle Stro­
mung."
62. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 142, pp. 175-76.
63. Taurinus Olomucensis, Stauromachia, bk. 5, vv. 123-49 (p. 41), 199-267 (pp.
42-44).
64. Tubero, Commentariorum de rebus, bk. 4, pp. 330-31.
65. Taurinus Olomucensis, Stauromachia, bk. 1, vv. 381-423 (p. 13); Brutus Janos
Mihaly, Magyar historidja 1: 350-58.
66. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 222, p. 302: "tempore, quo plura huius regni loca
sive timore sive perfidia ducti a recti fidelitatis tenore aberrarunt."
67. Ibid., no. 126, p. 166: "Inter quos unus feritate et crudelitate in genere hu­
mano nulli secundus Georgius Zekel rusticitati proximior quam nobilitati rusticos et
populum servilem arte et persuasionibus sinistris seducens."
68. Ibid., p. 165: "nonnulli ex Christiano populo zelo sancte religionis atque
defensionis huius regni ducti cruces sibi applicari iuxta ritum huius modi iubilei fe­
cissent quumque mali et perversi-ut plerumque fieri assolet-bonis immixti nacta
 Notes to Chapter II 394
hac effundendi latens virus eorum occasione sedicionem et tumultum in hoc regno
excitassent."
69. Ibid., no. 221, p. 300.
70. Ibid., no. 202, p. 260.
71. Ibid.: "Item quarnquam omnes rustici, qui adversus dominos eorum natu­
rales insurrexerunt, tanquam proditores capitali pena sint plectendi, ne tamen tot
sanguinis effusio adhuc sequatur et omnis rusticitas, sine qua nobilitas parum valet,
deleatur, statutum est, quod universi capitanei et centuriones et decuriones concita­
toresque aliorum rusticorum ac manifesti homicide nobilium, preterea violatores vir­
ginum ac mulierum omni gracia remota occidantur et ubilibet extirpentur."
72. Ibid., no. 41, p. 88: "ad quantam temeritatem et insolencias rustici et popu­
lares . . . sub nomine cruciate progressi sum." Similar language appears in letters de­
signed to rouse the nobility of other parts of Hungary, ibid., nos. 53, 56, 68 (pp. 97,
99, no).
73. Ibid., pp. 234, 238, 294, 302, 335, 370, 418, 443, 468, 473, 523, 537, 540, 542.
74. T he Hungarian comites were royal provincial administrators, and the title
was official rather than patrimonial. T he English word "count" in this context con­
veys a misleading sense of independent noble status apart from office. T he comes
more closely resembled the English sheriff.
75. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 73, p. n6: "Quot homicidia, quot stupra et adul­
teria quotque cedes et incendia per maledictos sceleratissimosque crucifixores illos,
qui se se cruciferos appellabant, sed cruds pocius Christi persecutores fuerant."
76. Ibid., no. 200, p. 244: "Evocati interdum quotquot nobilium vi apprehen­
dere possum, eorum corpora acutissimis sudibus transfodiunt ante uxorum et libero­
rum oculos; neque hoc satis videtur vindictae, sed coram maritis miseras uxores
stupro violant omnisque exercitus. . . . 0 facinus et diis et hominibus invisum! 0 im­
pudentes belluas! 0 immensarn ultionem!"
77. E.g., Taurinus Olomucensis, Stauromachia, bk. 2, vv. 151-60 (p. 19).
78. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 104, pp. 142-44.
79. Ibid., p. 142: "ut est plebs novarum rerum semper studiosa, ideo ea moliri,
ut a servitute in libertatem se se vendicarent."
80. Ibid., no. 79, pp. 121-22. Here too, the stirring but unreliable version of the
"speech" reported byTubero ( Commentariorum de rebus, bk. 4, pp. 331-32) andTaur­
inus Olomucensis (Stauromachia, bk. 1, vv. 381-423 [p. 13]) has influenced even re­
cent historians, such as Szekely, in his "Les revoltes paysannes."
81. Sz<ics, "Die oppositionelle Stromung," pp. 499-500. Townsmen of Kosice
(Kassa) referred to the peasant soldiers as the "faithful slaves of the Holy Cross,"
while an anonymous crusader promised that God and the Holy Cross worn by the
soldiers would avenge the murder of prisoners held by their enemies (Monumenta
rusticorum, no. 45, p. 92; no. 50, p. 96).
82. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 79, p. 122: "Noveritis, quod infideles nobiles ad­
versus et contra nos et omnem comitivarn cruciferorum ad presentem expedicionem
Notes to Chapter II 395
sancte congregacionis violenta manu insurrexerunt {ut} sic persequi, molestare et tur­
bare volentes."
83. Tubero, Commentariorum de rebus, bk. 4, pp. 331-32.
84. Sziics, Nation und Geschichte, pp. 341-43.
85. Monumenta rusticorum, no. 49, p. 95. See Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, pp.
350-53.
86. E.g., Etienne de Fougeres, writing between n74 and n78, in his Le livre des
manieres, vv. 705-12 (p. 85); Reformation Kaiser Siegmunds, MGH Staatsschriften des
spateren Mittelalters 6, pp. 86, 88.
87. Malyusz, "Hungarian Nobles of MedievalTransylvania," p. 46 (the article is
a translation of a part of Az erdelyi magyar tdrsadalom a kozepkorban, written 1947
and published in Budapest in 1988).
88. T he bloody sword is mentioned in a Transylvanian customary collection of
1463, according to Malyusz and Krist6's commentary in T hur6czy, Chronica Hun­
garorum 2: 89. See above, Chapter 5, p. 122, for the bloody sword in connection with
the supposed mustering of the Huns. For the use of the symbols in 1514, seeTaurinus
Olomucensis, Stauromachia, bk. 1, vv. 480-83 (p. 15); Monumenta rusticorum, no.
108, p. 147; no. 178, p. 207; and Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, pp. 362-67.
89. Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, p. 339.
90. Szucs, "Die oppositionelle Stromung," pp. 483-84.
91. See C. Maier, Preaching the Crusades.
92. Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, pp. 345-46.
93. Szucs, "A Ferences Obszervancia." Six documents from the codex discussed
by Szucs are edited in an appendix to this article, pp. 257-60.
94. Szucs, "Die oppositionelle Stromung," pp. 503-4.
95. Oswald of Lasko, Sermones de sanctis (unfoliated), sermon no. 77 to 'Ecce con­
stitui te super gentes . . . ' (Jeremiah 1:10): "Ve principi qui suos subditos grauat in­
iustis exactionibus. Ve inquam principi qui contra consuetudinem illegitime vexat
suos propinatione sui vini et ceruisse. Ve illis omnibus qui iobagiones suas deuorant
inordinate dica et angaria." It is noteworthy that here, as elsewhere in the sermons,
Oswald uses the Latinized Hungarian term for serfs, iobagiones.
96. Ibid., sermon no. 50: "quia talis fur est et latro et continue est in peccato . . .
nee tali domino subditi tenentur obedire et solvere tributum." Sermon no. 49: "Et
etiam adversus suum superiorem posset quis se defendere, dummodo superior iniu­
riose vult ipsum ledere." Discussed in Szucs, "Die oppositionelle Stromung," p. 508.
97. See especially Oswald of Lasko, Sermones dominicales, sermon no. 85.
98. Ibid., sermons nos. 2, 123, 124; idem, Sermones de sanctis, sermon no. 41. See
Szucs, "Die Oppositionelle Stromung," pp. 5n-12.
99. Sziics, "Die Oppositionelle Stromung," p. 506.
IOO. Ibid., pp. 493-99; Szucs, Nation und Geschichte, p. 348.
IOI. E.g., Laube, Steinmetz, and Vogler, lllustrierte Geschichte, Die fruhburgerliche
Revolution in Deutsch/and; and Vogler, Nurnberg I524/25.
 Notes to Chapter II 396
102. Moeller, Imperial Cities and the Reformation; Ozment, Reformation in the
Cities; Dickens, German Nation and Martin Luther; Oberman, "Tumultus rustico­
rum." See also Hsia, "Myth of the Commune."
103. In the words of Franz, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, 12th ed., p. 288: "Der
Bauernkrieg ist ein Glied in dem Kampf der Deutschen um das Reich." T his theme
occurs even more strongly in the first (1933) edition. See also Waas, Die Bauern im
Kampf um Gerechtigkeit, pp. 5-25. Critiques of this view are given by Buszello, Der
deutsche Bauernkrieg, pp. 12-15; and Stalnaker, "Towards a Social Interpretation."
104. H. Cohn, ''Anti-Clericalism"; Oberman, "Tumultus rusticorum''; Goertz,
Pfajfenhass und gross Geschrei.
105. Franz, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, 12th ed., pp. 1-91. Bierbrauer, "Bauerliche
Revolten," pp. 38-39, points out that Old Law and Godly Law were ways of legiti­
mating revolt and not categories of the actual goals of the peasants, which tended to
be political, economic, or related to social or legal standing.
106. E.g., Burke, Popular Culture, pp. 173-78.
107. P. Blickle, "Peasant Revolts,"p. 232.
108. Their demands are in Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no.
12, pp. 59-61 (Schliengen, diocese of Constance); no. 13, pp. 61-62 (Hegau); no. 15,
pp. 67-70 (Schlettstadt/Selestat, Alsace); no. 16, pp. 70-76 (Untergrombach, diocese
of Speyer); no. 17, pp. 76-79 (Freiburg im Breisgau); no. 18, pp. 79-81 (Upper Rhine).
109. P. Bliclde, "Peasant Revolts," pp. 230-31; Schlapfer, "Die Appenzeller Frei­
heitskriege."
no. Ulbrich, Leibherrschaft am Oberrhein; W. Millier, Entwicklung und Spatfor­
men; P. Bliclde, ''Agrarkrise und Leibeigenschaft"; Rosener, "Zur Sozialokonomischen
Lage"; R. Blickle, "Leibeigenschaft."
m. P. Bliclde, Revolution ofI525, pp. 26-27, 202-5.
112. Holenstein, "A.bte und Bauern," p. 264.
n3. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 70, p. 239; no. 94, pp.
305-9; no. n2, p. 343; Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Wopfner, pp. 46,
61, 134-35; Hollaender, "Die vierundzwanzig Artikel," especially p. 83.
II4, Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 25, pp. 121-22; trans­
lation from German Peasants' "War: A History in Documents, no. I, p. 72.
n5. Regarding Embrach, see W. Millier, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung," p. 12; re­
garding Rothenburg, see Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 101,
p. 329.
n6. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 23, pp. 97-98; Franz,
Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, vol. 2 Al<tenband, no. 26c (p. 149), no. 30 (p. 164), no. 44
(p. 180).
117. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 346, p. 153: "Die seint
beschwert mit der Li.ibaigenschaft, wann sie wellent kain andern Her haben, dann
anlain Gott den Allmechtigen, wann der hat uns erschaffen. Wann mir vermeinden
auch, das die gotlich Geschrift, das nit auswisse, das kain Hern kain Aigenmensch
haben soll, wann Gott ist der recht Her."
Notes to Conclusion 397
n8. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 87, p. 263.
n9. Text in P. Bliclde, Revolution ofI525, pp. 195-201.
120. Brecht, "Der theologische Hintergrund."
121. See the summary and reworking of Franz's views by Wunder, "'Old Law'
and 'Divine Law."'
122. The phrase appears in the English version of Oberman's "Tumultus rustico­
rum" ("The Gospel of Social Unrest"), p. 43.
123. Kirchner, Luther and the Peasants' "War.
124. Notably W. Becker, "Gottliches Wort." Against this view, see Oberman,
"Tumultus Rusticorum," pp. 160-65.
125. T his point is made by H. Cohn, ''Anti-Clericalism." See ''Ain schoener dia­
logus und gesprech zwischen aim PEarrer and aim Schulthayss" (in Martin Bucers
Deutsche Schriften, vol. 1) especially p. 486 (Pfarrer): "meer muoss ich ei.ich sagen:
wohaer kommend die aigen lei.it? ich maint, wir soelttendt alle frey von got sein, wie
clan ei.ir Luther auch schriebt in der freyhait des menschen." ([The priest:] moreover
I must tell you, whence come serfs? I believe we should all be free by God's ordinance,
as your Luther writes in "the freedom of men'' [i.e., The Freedom ofa Christian].)
126. Urkunden zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges und der Wiedertaufer, p. 24.
127. P. Bliclde, "Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit."
128. A recent study of the complicated problem of literacy and the Reformation
is Scribner, " Heterodoxy, Literacy and Print."
129. The importance of strong local communities in furthering the revolt has
been emphasized by P. Bliclde, Communal Reformation.
130. Bierbrauer, "Das Gottliche Recht." Also important in noting the precedents
to the Peasants' War antedating the Reformation are Brecht, "Der theologische Hin­
tergrund," pp. 174-208;W. Millier, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung"; Grundmann, "Frei­
heit als religioses," pp. 49-53; and Boockmann, "Zu den geistigen."
131. Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, ed. Franz, no. 43, p. 176: "Zi.im
dritten ist der Brauch bisher gewesen, das man fi.ir ir aigen Lei.it gehalten haben,
wolchs zu erbarmen ist, angesehen das uns Christus all mit seinem kostparlichen
Plutvergi.issen erlosst und erkauft hat, den Hirten gleich als wol als den Hochsten,
kain ausgenommen. Darumb erfindt sich mit der Geschrift, das wir frei seien un
wollen sein." T he translation is from P. Bliclde, Revolution ofI525, p. 197.
132. See the table on p. 29 ofW. Millier, "Wurzeln und Bedeutung."
133. Bierbrauer, "Das Gottliche Recht," table on p. 226.
134. B. Moore, Injustice, pp. 81-89.135. Ibid., p. 87.
Conclusion
I. In thinking about text and context I am especially influenced by the approach
of LaCapra, History, Politics and the Novel.
2. Frierson, Peasant Icons; Donskov, Changing Image ofthe Peasant.
3. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, BLVS 247, vv. 6930-47 (1: 289-90). On
 Notes to Conclusion 398 Notes to Conclusion 399

Hugo's complaints concerning the oppression of rustic laborers, see above, Chapter 17. Scribner, "Images of the Peasant"; Packull, "Image of the 'Common Man"';
2, p. 52. Uhrig, "Der Bauer in der Publizistik," pp. 95-106, 165-76.
4. Ibid., vv. 3405-23 (pp. 140-41). 18. Packull, "Image of the 'Common Man,"' pp. 258-60.
5. Ibid., vv. 843-45 (p. 34); vv. 145r59 (p. 60); vv. 2220-28 (pp. 92-93); vv. 19. Hans Rosenplilt was primarily a writer of antipeasant Carnival plays, and his
38orro (p. 157). praise of peasants is. a separate apology showing his conformity to this tendency of
6. See above, Chapter 4. public opinion. See the contrasting excerpts from his work in Quellen zur Geschichte
7. Hugo von Trimberg, Der Renner, vv. 1309-14 (BLVS 247, 1: 54-55): des deutschen Bauernstandes, nos. 216-17, pp. 548-52.
20. Duby, Three Orders, pp. 1-4.
Noch sint einer leie liute, 21. Chartier, "Intellectual History or Sociocultural History?," p. 30.
Die man geburvolc heizet hiute, 22. On the thesis that language constitutes experience rather than simply reflect­
Der maniger vil trazmiletic were: ing it, see Joan W Scott, "Experience," p. 34.
Weren in die herren niht ze swere, 23. Smith, "Geschichte zwischen den Fronten," p. 600 (in this German version
S6 mohte man ir vil manigen vinde of an originally English composition, the terms are rendered somewhat neutrally as
Bi der h6chferte ingesinde. "eine mehr und eine weniger Radikale Einsicht").
8. Ibid., vv. 1315-20 (p. 55): 24. Certeau, Writing ofHistory, p. 79.
25. Kroeber, Anthropology, Race, p. 284; Robert Redfield, "Social Organization of
In ein dorf kam ich geriten, Tradition," in Peasant Society, ed. Potter; George F. Foster, introduction to Peasant
Da lagen gebur nach iren siten Society, pp. 10-14.
An irm gemache uf irn wammen. 26. James C. Scott, Weapons ofthe Weak; Everyday Forms ofPeasant Resistance, ed.
Zuo irn houbten sazen ir ammen, Colborn; Contesting Power.
Die mit flize tierlich suochten 27. E.g., Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals; Stern, "New Approaches to the Study of
Der si liitzel hin nach geruochten. Peasant Rebellion."
28. Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, pp. 39-45.
9. Ibid., vv. 145r56 (p. 60): 29. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, p. 164, cited in James C. Scott,
Nieman ist schoene, edel und rich Domination, p. 75.
Denne der da kumt ze himelrkh: 30. James C. Scott, Domination, p. 79.
Dar kumt vil lihte ir armen e 31. Ibid., pp. 92-94, citing B. Moore, Injustice, p. 84.
Denne iuwer vogte, die in tuont we. 32. Field, Rebels in the Name ofthe Tsar.
33. Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, especially pp. 43-68.
IO, Ibid., vv. 1565-4000 (pp. 65-164). 34. James C. Scott, Domination, pp. 90-96.
n. See above, Chapter 9, notes 71-73. 35. Ibid., p. 95.
12. Quellen zur Geschichte des deutschen Bauernstandes, no. 218, p. 553. 36. Of particular relevance to the Middle Ages is Wickham, "Gossip and Resis-
13. AB in the Reimchronik des Appenzellerkrieges, vv. 1495-98 (p. 47); and "Heintz tance."
von Bechwinden" (actually Heinrich Behel ), in "Zwei Flugschriften aus der Zeit 37. White, "Everyday Resistance," p. 56.
Maximilians I," vv. 373-77 (p. 178). T hese passages are discussed above in Chapter 6, 38. See especially Ortner, "Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal."
p. 149. Hemmerli repeats the supposed truism about peasants needing to be bled and 39. Wickham, "Gossip and Resistance," pp. 20-22.
trimmed, and additionally recommends burning rustic properties every 50 years, but 40. Scheiner, "Benevolent Lords and Honorable Peasants."
more to restrain them than to get anything out of them; see Hemmerli, De nobilitate 41. Chartier, "Culture as Appropriation"; idem, "Intellectual History and the
et rusticitate, cap. 32, fol. 124r. "Trimming" and other images of harsh late-medieval History of Mentalites."
lordship are discussed by Algazi, Herrengewalt, pp. 188-214. 42. Le Goff, "Learned and Popular Dimensions"; Gurevich, "Medieval Culture
14. Hemmerli, De nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 33, fol. 127v. and Mentalite," p. 39; idem, "Oral and Written Culture"; idem, "Bachtin und der
15. Ibid.: "et dixi clerico meo, 'nunc vadamus' prout fecimus." Karneval," p. 425; and idem, "Popular Culture and Medieval Latin Literature," in his
16. Bierbrauer, "Das Gottliche Recht," pp. 222-28. Medieval Popular Culture, pp. 3r38.
 Notes to Conclusion 400 Notes to Conclusion 401

43. Edwards, "Religious Faith and Doubt," especially p. 24. pecially pp. 204-5. See also Bhabha's articles "The Other Question," "Of Mimicry
44. Bolton, "Poverty as Protest," p. 5. and Man," and "Signs Taken for Wonders." The three last are reprinted in Bhabha,
45. Stock, Implications ofLiteracy. Location ofCulture.
46. On the question of how the voice of the oppressed is silenced, manifested, 59. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen; Sokoloff, "Rural Change and Farming Poli­
or ventriloquized, see Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?"; Prakash, "Subaltern Stud­ tics"; La fin de la France. Similar observations are made for contemporary Catalonia
ies as Postcolonial Criticism"; and idem, "Can the 'Subaltern' Ride?" For the Middle in Duran, Adeu, els pagesos.
Ages, see Biddick, "Decolonizing the English Past." 60. Braudel, Identity ofFrance, pp. 674-75.
47. As cited by R. H. Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, p. 7; and Bordo, Intolerable 61. Bess, "Ecology and Artifice."
Weight, p. 32.
48. The large bibliography on these subjects includes N. Cohn, Europe's Inner
Demons; Chazan, "Deteriorating Image of the Jews"; Langmuir, Toward a Definition
ofAntisemitism; Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, Daniel, Islam and the West; South­
ern, Western Views ofIslam; R. I. Moore, "Concept of Heresy as Disease"; Barber,
"Lepers, Jews and Moslems"; and Boswell, "Jews, Bicycle Riders, and Gay People."
49. Bartlett, Making ofEurope; Mellinkoff, Outcasts, Fernandez-Armesto, Before
Columbus; R. I. Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society; Richards, Sex, Dissidence
and Damnation.
50. Heer, Medieval World, distinguishes between the "open' ' society of the twelfth
century and the "closed" society that succeeded it after the early thirteenth century.
Boswell, Christianity, Homosexuality and Social Tolerance, pp. 269-332, applies a sim­
ilar paradigm to the history of toleration, regarding natural law, Aristotelianism, and
scholastic doctrine as leading to a break with an earlier acceptance. Richards, Sex,
Dissidence and Damnation, pp. 1-13, regards the twelfth century as an open though
threatened society and the thirteenth as seeing the triumph of intolerance. In the
field of Spanish history, an earlier era of intercommunal coexistence (convivencia)
among Muslims, Christians, and Jews is contrasted with the inquisitorial climate of
the later medieval centuries; see especially Castro, Espana en su historia.
51. Todorov, Conquest ofAmerica; Boucher, Cannibal Encounters; Pagden, Euro­
pean Encounters with the New World; Implicit Understandings.
52. Of fundamental importance is Said, Orienta/ism. Specific applications in­
clude Bassin, "Inventing Siberia''; Batteau, Invention ofAppalachia; L. Wolf, Invent­
ing Eastern Europe; American Indian and the Problem ofHistory.
53. Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One; Gilman, Difference and Pathology; Out
There; Trinh, Woman, Native, Other; Race, Writing and Difference.
54, Certeau, Heterologies; Writing Culture; Said, "Representing the Colonized."
55. The term "fetishization of alterity'' appears in N. Thomas, Colonialism's Cul­
ture, p. 159.
56. A successful and intriguing attempt to get away from the limitations of the
paradigm of "the Other" and examine Jewish-Muslim relations is Nirenberg, Com­
munities of Violence, pp. 166-99.
57. "Proximate other" is used by Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence, p. 135, in reference
to Augustine's view of the Manicheans.
58. Bhabha, "Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism," es-
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In this index an "f" after a number indicates a separate reference on the next page,and an "ff"
indicates separate references on the next two pages. A continuous discussion over two or more
pages is indicated by a span of page numbers,e.g.,"57-59." Passim is used for a duster of ref­
erences in dose but not consecutive sequence.

Aaron,David,87 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 127

Abbo of Fleury,17 Anonimalle Chronicle, 267
Adalbero of Laon,17-18,23-28 passim, Anti-Semitism,256,39on87
41-42,61,182,309m3 Antoninus,Saint,99
Adam and Eve,59-66 Aquinas,Thomas, 73,82-83,85,249
Adam de la Halle,166 Aristotle,62, 72-73, 75f,82-85 passim, 155,
Adam of Eynsham,78,251 239,33m133
Adolphi,Johann, 200-201 Arme Heinrich, Der, 208-9,224
Adrian IY, Pope,82 Arnoul III of Ardres,183
Aelfric,abbot of Eynsham,17,22,78 Arnulf of Villers,26
Aelred of Rievaulx,25 Ascoli, Cecco d',91
Aers,David,227 Atto ofVercelli,81, 102f, 248-49
Agobard of Lyons,80,248f,255 Aucassin et Nicolette, 140,143,157
Africans,origin of, 89-96 Audigier, 180
Ahmad Baba,34omo1 Augustine,18,72,102,137,217,279; on sin
Alberti,Leon Battista,148 and slavery,75-79,98,239,248ff, 255
Alcuin,79,98,250 Aurora, 88
Alexander of Hales,99 Auxerre,84,98
Algazi, Gadi,39on84 Azurara,Gomes Eannes de,94
''Alphabet Against the Villani," 154
Alphonse o \Poitiers,85 Bagpipes,69ff
Alvaro Pelay ),bishop of Silves,143-44 Bakhtin,Mikhail,157
Ambrose,74-75,76,97,216 Baldwin,John,160,162
Ambrosiaster,74,97,248,255 Ball,John,6of, 226,249,258,264-65
Andorra,185-90,365n38 Barney,Stephen,34
Andreas Capellanus, 63,160-64 passim Barros,Carlos,183
Andrew of Fleury,178f, 182,249 Bartels,Adolf, 200
 Index
Bartholomaeus Anglicus,182,199
Basil,Saint,97
Baudouin de Sebourc, 64,326n32
Bauer, use of,10
Bauernlob, 213-14,235
Beaumanoir,Philippe de,59-60,85,n2,n4, Brecht, Martin, 284
241
Beaune,Colette,108
Behel,Heinrich,149,191
Bechwinden,Heintz von,149
Bede,89,127,224
Behem,Hans,37
Bell,Rudolph,221
Benedict of Sainte-Maure,24,43-44,50
Benedict,St.,25,28,31
Benedict XIII,Pope,254
Benes ofWeitmiihl,2n
Benjamin of Tudela,88,332mo
Beowulf, 89
Berce,Yves-Marie,246
Bernard of Angers,138-39
Bernard of Clairvaux,25,26
Bernard of Cluny,136
Berthold von Regensburg,19,32,53,181,219, Carozzi,Claude,17
224,313n74
Bertran de Born,178
Bertran de Ceva,n6-17,31m30
Best,George,94
Bierbrauer,Peter,85,252,255,260,285
Birnbaum,Marianna,270
Bisson,T homas,108
Black Death,effects of,262,287,292
Blankenburg,Wilhelm,3
Blickle,Peter,282
Bloch,Marc,85,n3,148,241-42,259
Boccaccio,Giovanni,159
Bodel,Jean,150-51,160-61
Bodenstein von Ka.rlstadt,Andreas,37,234 Charles of Anjou,121
Boethius,62
Bohemia,legendary origins of, 210
Bonaventura,Saint,151
Bonet,Honore,69
Bonnassie,Pierre,135,241f
Book ofSt. Albans, 63,102,34on101
Book ofSainte Foy, 138-39
Borrell,Count of Barcelona,n5
Bourdieu,Pierre,297
452 Index 453
Boureau,Alain,146,244 Chronicon Eberheimense, 178 "Edelmannslehre," 38
Bozon, Nicholas, 51 Chronik van der hilligen stat van Coellen, 212 Edward III,King of England,129
Brachylogus, 85 Cicero,67,72f Edwards,John,299
Bracton, 84 Ciompi,63 Eike von Repgow,see Sachsenspiegel
Braudel, Fernand, 302-3 Cistercians,8,25-27 Eiximenis,Francese,148,151,221
Coll i Alentorn,Miquel,108 Elias,Norbert,31
Bruegel, Pieter,35,173 Colmar Song Collection,19,223 Engelmar of Bavaria,Saint,222
Bruto, Gian Michele,52 Cologne,symbolism of,2n-12 Engels,Friedrich,280
Bue, Philippe, 43,48 Colonus, use of term,IO England: views of servitude in,106,126-30;
Bucer,Martin,231-32,281,284 "Combat des Trente," 40 and Rising of 1381,260-67
Buch der Riigen, 18,32,181,220 Conrad of Eberbach,26 Enikel,Jansen,100
Bulgarus,85 Conrad II,Emperor,81 Ephraim of Syria,333m5
Burchard ofWorms,82,98,138 Constable,Giles,20 Equality,59-79
Consuetudines Cathaloniae, n7 Erasmus,252,285,293
Caboet family,186 Conversi, 25-26,312n54 Estout de Goz,146-47
Caesarius of Arles, 217 "Corner-Stone Speech," 96 Eucherius of Lyon,Saint,33,223
Cain,as first peasant,91-93 Cosmas of Prague,81,210 Eupolemius, 143,184,372n128
Camille,Michael,28 Coulton,G. G.,3 Euripides,62
Canaan,see Noah's curse Cowardice,as origin of serfdom,no-20
Canizares,Jorge,335n45 Cresques,93 Farrier,Susan E.,356n96
Capitein,Jacobus,95 Cronica de Espanya, n5 Feierman,Steven,297
Capuciati, 61,84,98,259 Crusade ideology,273,276-80,298 Ferry de Rocourt,243-44
Carmina Burana, 171 Cullage, 146. See also Droit de seign eur Fiter,Antoni,188,190,367n66
Cursor mundi, 99 Foix,counts of,185-88
Cartwright,Samuel A.,336n51 Fontane,T heodor,200
Carvajales,171 Dante Alighieri,64 Foucault,Michel,300
Castellbo,viscounts of, 186 Death Dance, 162 Francis,Saint,9,II
Castleford,T homas,128 Deschamps,Eustache,56 Franciscans,8-9, 27,51,217-18,230,273-80
Catalonia: legendary origins of, 108-9, n4- "Descriptio-Turpin," III,341n24 passim
18,244-45,253-55; civil war in,267-69 Dialogue between a Cluniac and a Cistercian, Franz,Gunther,281,284
Caxton,William,335n35 25 Frederick Barbarossa,Emperor,181
Cegled Proclamation,276-77,278 "Die des Avocats," 40 Freedom: as result of courage,109-10,II5,
Certeau,Michel de,296 Dithmarschen,199-201 121,194-202 passim, 277-78; through
Cessolis,Jacobo de,62,91,100 Dives and Pai �er, 100 Christ's sacrifice, 77-78,249-56
Charlemagne,legends of,20,106,108-12, "Doctrine oft·� Holy Crown," 122-23,125 Frey,Peter,224
n5-18,120,188-89,195,254 Domesday Book,106,129-30, 264 Friedman,Albert B.,62
Charles IV of Bohemia,2n Dominicans,27,48 passim, 99 Fries,Lorenz,37
Donnei des Amants, 138 Frisch,Max,190
Charles the Good,Count of Flanders,183 D6zsa,Gyorgy, 269-71, 273-77 Froissart,Jean,53ff, 63,139,265,267
Chartier,Roger,295,299 Droit de seigneur, 243-45
Chaucer,Geoffrey,35,83,100,150,162ff, Duby,Georges,17,20,22-24,41-45,182, Gaismair,Michael,258
216,229 259,31m37 Galceran of Meulan,Count,242
Chekhov,Anton,97 Dudo of Saint-Quentin,43 Galpin,Stanley Leman,3,134,138,348n7
Chelcicky,Peter,36-37,49,54,252 Dyer,Christopher,262 Garin le Loherain, 143,178,180
Chretien de Troyes, 31,137, 140-41,143,157f, Gaudry,Saint,222
169,206 Eating,as metaphor,47-50 passim Gautier de Coincy,221
Christine de Pisan,212 Ebner,Herwig,3 Gengenbach,Pamphilius,100
 Index 454 Index 455

Gerald of Wales,50
Gerard de Barry,161
Gerard of Cambrai,17,182,328n87
Gesta comitum Barcinonensium, n5,194
Gildas,127
Giles of Rome,83
Ginzburg,Carlo,138
Goldonowski,Andrzej,223
G6mez de Guzman,Fernan,183
Goswin of Villers,26
Gower,John,20,41,62,93,100,143,149
Gramsci,Antonio,297
Gratian,73,77f,82,251
Gravdal,Kathryn, 134-35,165,348n7
"Great Rumor " of 1377,266
Gregory IX,Pope, 142,199,278
Gregory of Tours,221
Gregory the Great: use of metaphors by,34,
223f; on equality and slavery,48,76-79,
81,85,98,102,248,250-51,253,255,268,
299,329n88
"Grobianism," 173-73,362n80
Gruenbeck,Joseph,232
Gui de Bourgogne, Chanson de, III, 121
Guifre "the Hairy," Count of Barcelona,109,
n5,194
Guillaume de Saint Amour,27
Guillaume Le Clerc,219
Gurevich,Aaron,23,299
Guy ofAnderlecht,Saint,222
Hagen,Godefrit,212
Haimo of Auxerre,80,31m37,33omo3
"Halbritter," 178
Ham, see Noah's curse
Hannemann,Johann Ludwig,95,335n46
Hartmann von Aue,208-9,224
Heald,David,3
Heinrich "der Teichner," 19,213,223
Heinrich von Burgus,217-18
Helmbrecht, 18,179-81,223
Hemmerli,Felix: on peasants,38,41,63,
100-101,14of,149,293,378n64,398m3;
on the Swiss,142,160,191,194f
Hemmingstedt,Battle of, 200-201
Henry I,King of England,50
Henry of Huntingdon,127
Henry II,King of England,48,319n43 Jean Colombe,31 Leisure, 30-31, 144,161
Henry the Navigator,Prince,94 Jean de Conde,133-34 Leo X,Pope,123,276f
Heraclitus,72 Jean,Duke of Berry,31,35,144-45 Le Roy Ladurie,Emmanuel,36
Hesse,Hans,162 Jerome,Saint,89,203,217 Levi,Carlo,1,256
Hilton,Rodney,260 Joan de Socarrats,n7,31m30 Liber Catonianus, 228
Hoffmann,Richard,124,126 Joan I,King of Aragon,n7,254 Libro de Buen Amor, 163,169-70
Holkham Bible,34,223 Joan of Arc,212,376n44 Lied von der Entstehung der Eidgemossen­
Holy Lance,discovery of the,220 Jocelin (poet),167 schaft, Das, 192
Honorius Augustodunensis,31-32,99,216, Johannes de Rupescissa,51 "Life of the Infidel,Wicked,and Rustic
218,228,231,250,291,337n76 Johannes,Master,III Villeins," 154
Horace,30,215 Johannes von Tepl,35,228,384m32 Limbourg brothers,31
Horns,as "mark of Cain," 90,91,92 Johann von Jenstejn,251 Linehan,Peter,108
Hrabanus Maurus,80,98,221,250 Johann von Viktring,242 Locher,James,231
Hue de Saint-Quentin,165 John Chrysostom,23,97-98 Lope de Vega,183,222
Hugh of Saint-Cher,49 John,King of England,127 Louis IX,King of France,121
Hughes,Christopher,191 John of Bromyard,51-52,138,218 Lucan,48
Hugli,Hilde,3 John of Marmoutier,140-41 Ludovicus,Brother (Franciscan preacher),
Hugo von Trimberg,52,63,83,91,100-101, John of Worcester,50 19,32,217,219
178,218,235,290-92,332n6 Jonas of Orleans,80,102,248,250 Luther,Martin,37,103,232-34,248,258,
Huguccio,82 Josephus,89 281,284,286
Hugues Capet, Chanson de, 64 Juan del Encina,160 Luttrell Psalter,140,145
Huizinga,Johan,59,323n91,325m7 Juan Manuel,Don,219
Humbert of Romans,28,38on74 Justice,Steven,259,265,266 Machiavelli,Niccolo,63
Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle, 122,124 Justin Martyr,88 "Magister P," n9
Hungary: legendary origins of, n8-26; Re- Malleus maleficarum, 194
volt of 1514,269-80 Kecskes,Tamas,277 Mandeville,John de,89,96
Kempten,54,245-47,282 Mannyng,Robert,108,128f
Ibn Khaldun,89,333n20 Kinky hair,motif of, 91ff Mansa Musa,King of Mali,93
Ibn Qutayba,89 Kirk,Elizabe '\t, 34,227 Map,Walter,48 passim, 319n43
Idungus (Cistercian monk), 25 Klaniczay,Ga 'pr,108 Marcabru,167
Inequality,72,77 Knighton,Henry,265,267 Marchal,Guy,192,194
Innocent III,Pope,48 Konrad von Arnmenhausen,83,91ff, 100 Maria de Luna,Queen of Aragon,254
Iolo Goch,228 Marie de France,206
Isaac of Stella,25 Labor: value of, 16-20,24-33,36-37,213-14, Markus, Robert, 77,329n88
Isidore of Seville,31, 76-81 passim, 89,98, 229,232,234,294-5; as penance,26-32 Martin V,Pope,245
239,255 passim, 219; as servile,145-48 Martin I,King of Aragon,254
Isidore the Farmer,Saint,222 La Bruyere,Jean de,1 Martin of Braga,137-38,217
ius maletractandi, 240,254,256,323n87 Lacombe,Gilbert,45f Martin,Tony,332n3
Ivo of Chartres,82,98 Lactantius,74,216,248 Martini,Fritz,3
Ladislas "the Cuman," King of Hungary,n9 Marx,Karl,150
Jackson,WT.H.,164 Lambert ofArdres,50 Massys,Cornelis,160
Jacob,Robert,183 Landes,Richard,36 Matazone de Calignano,147-48
Jacquerie (1358),51,53,139,267 gland,William,34,224-29,232, 261,266 Matthew Paris,128-29
Jacques de Vitry,28,23-33,49,220,318nn31, angtoft, Peter,128 Maximilian I,Emperor,195
36 Langton,Stephen,24,45-49,51,60,81,204, Melanchthon,Philipp,62,284
James I,King of Aragon,184 250,316-18nn.25-37,319-20nn.46-48 Mellinkoff, Ruth,137
James of Lausanne,49 Le Goff, Jacques,8,24,27 passim, 141,299 Menander,62
 Index Index 457

Meszaros,Lorine,277 Otto ofFreising,93,181 Peter von Andlau,2n Roger of Wendover,127

Meyer,Paul,147 Owst,G. R. 51 Petrarch,Francesco,66-71,91,216 Rolevinck,Werner,50,231
Michael of Northgate,218 "Petrarch Master," 67-71,326n43 Romance of Claris and Laris, 140
Mieres,Tomas,54,256,323n87 Paden,William,164 Petrus Comestor,102,339moo Roman de la Rose, Le, 161
Ministeriales, 178 Panofsky, Erwin, 144,314n87 Philip deThaon,206 Roman de Renart le Contrefait, m-12,121,135
Mirror ofjustices, 99 Pariatges of Andorra,186-88 Pierre de Beauvais,III Roman de T hebes, 206
Mittelalterliches Hausbuch, 31 Paris,Gaston,164 Piers Plowman, see Langland,William Rosenplut,Hans,18,62f, 66,213-14,223,
Moffat, Douglas,127ff Pastourelle,164-71 Pinelo, Leon,94 293,399m9
Mohacs, Battle of,125 Patterson,Lee,100 Plato,69,72 Ruiz,Juan,163,169-70
Monstrelet,19 Paul,Saint,33-34,72,239,248 Plow, symbolism of,33-35,66,223-29 Ruprecht vonFreising,148-49,241,355n86
Montaigne,Michel de,270 Peace and Truce of God,182-83 "Poem on theFirst Nobleman," 214,216 Rusticitas, 217
Montaillou,36,49,189 "Peasant Catechism," 134,348n4 Poor people,u-13 Rusticus, use of term,IO, 137-38
Mont-Saint-Michel,145-47 Peasants: as Christians,1,15-16,204-5; Popplau,Nicholas von,245 Rutebeuf,153
Moore,Barrington,286f,298 non-marginality of,2; as economically Premysl,of Bohemia,210
"Mountain liberties," 189,191 necessary,2,15,17-20, 144-45,213-14; Proverbe au vilain, Li,·208 Sachsenspiegel, 102-3,249,251f, 255-56,
Muller,Walter,252,285 discourse about,3-5,7,295-300; defini­ Prudentius,91 285-86
Miintzer,Thomas,258 tion of, 9-10; violence against,38,148- Pseudo-Aethicus Ister,89 Saint Gall,246,282
Murner,Thomas,232 49, 240-47; diet of, 44,147,149-50; Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, no passim, 121, Salinas y Cordova,Buenaventura de,94
Muskatblut,224 mistreatment of,50-55; as animals, 34m23 Sallust,274
Mutuality among social orders,20-24, 294. 53-54,142-43; descended from Cain, Ptolemy of Luce.\ 83 Sanchez de Arevalo,Rodrigo,144
See alsoThree Orders of Society 91-93; as comical,133-37; as unreligious, Santillana,Marques de,171
137-39; bodily deformity of, 139-41; Queen Mary PsaltJr,144-45 Scheidig,Walter,69
Neidhart corpus,38,135-36,150-52,158, ugliness of,139-41; "otherness " of, 141f, Scheiner,Irwin,299
162-63, 164,166,171-72,213,292 300-302; as dirty,143-44; associated Radbruch,Renate and Gustav,69-71 Schiller,Friedrich von,190,192
"Neocorus," 200-201 with excrement,143,151-54; as stupid, Ragusa,Great Council of, 81-82 Schmidt,Karl,243-44
Nibelungenlied, n9-20 150-51; male,157-63, 171; ineptitude of Rasted Chronicle, 199 Schmitt,Jean-Claude,8,138
Nicholas ofTournai,77 at love,158,160-63; military incapacity Rather of Verona, 80-81, 98,179,250 Schuppert,Helga,3
Nicolas of Oresme,83 of,158,178-81; as violent,158,183-84, Raupp,Hans-Joachim,71 Schwabenspiegel, 182,249,251f, 255-56,
Noah's curse,86-104 275-76; female,159,163-72; in the pas­ Raymond of Aguilers,220 285-86,39on84
Nuremberg Carnival plays,154 tourelle,164-71; armies of,181- 85; free Rebellions,20,63,259-60; Normandy Scott,James,205,297-98
Nykrog,Per,134 communities of, 182,185-202; piety of, (997), 43-44; Hungary (1514),52-53, Seifried Helbling, 178
201-203,208-13,216-35; shrewdness of, 123-24, 269-80; England (1381),129-30, Seitz,Alexander,252
Oberman,Heiko A.,284 205-8; productivity of,213- 14; virtuous 260-67; Flanders (1323-28),258; Catalo­ Seneca,73f
Odo of Cheriton,216 simplicity of,214-18; spiritual advantage nia (1462-86),267-69; Germany (1525), Sentence of Guadalupe,245
Oexle,Otto Gerhard,20,23,42 of, 217-23; and sainthood,221-23; forms 280-86 Sepulveda,Gines de,331m33
Offa,King of Mercia,130,265 of resistance by,296-99; acceptance of Recchia,Vincenzo,329n88 Serfdom: definition of, 9-10; as distinct
Ogier le Danois,109 their situation among,297-300; aware­ Reformatio Sigismundi, 52f, 78,249,252,285, from slavery,82-83; as result of Noah's
Ordericus Vitalis,15,242 ness of their situation among,297-300. 290,293 curse,86,91-94,96-104; as result of
Ordinance and Statute of Laborers,226,262 See also Rebellions Reformation,impact of, 283-87 cowardice,rn5-26; incompatibility with
Origen,88,93 Pere Ribera of Perpignan,n5 Reich,Oskar,3 Christianity,235,247-56; as violation of
Osbert,Viscount ofFontenay-le-Pesnel, Peringer,Diepold,234 remences, 267-78 natural law,248-49; as issue in rebel­
146-47 Peter Bartholomew,220 Resnikow,Sylvia,61ff lions,288
Oswald of Lasko,250,279-80 Peter I,King of Aragon,240 Reynolds,Susan,107f Servus, use of term,IO, 79 passim, 99,n6,
Oswald von Wolkenstein,20 Peter of Blois,220 Richard II,King of England,262 327n68
"Otger Catal6," 109,n7 Peter of Riga,88 Rigord,140 Sevcenko,Ihor,307m5
"Other," concept of the,300-302 Peter the Chanter,21,48,64,77 Robert of Cours;on,53 Sewall,Samuel,95
Ottokar of Styria,178-79 Peter the Hermit,278 Robert of Gloucester,127-28 Sigena,28f, 65f,66
 Index Index 459
Simon d'Authie,167 Tell,William,190-94 Virgil, 30,214-15 Wheatley,Edward,227
Simon ofKeza, n9-22, 124-25,272,278 T hibaut IV, Count of Champagne,168 Vitale,Giovanni,275-76 White Book ofSarnen, 192
Slavery: as result of nature,72; as contrary to T homas of Wimbledon,15,49 Vita Sancti Neoti, 209 White,Christine Pelzer,298
natural law,73; as result of sin,74-81, T homasin von Zerclaere,53 Vivo,Joan Belloch,188 Wickham,Chris,189
97-98; as result of misfortune,75-76, T hree Orders of Society: use of as model, Vladislav II,King of Hungary,20,122-23, William,Count of Holland,182
79-80,328n81; and serfdom,79,81-82; 16,20-24,40; failure in practice,24, 273-76 William,Duke of Normandy,43
as result of Noah's curse,88-104 40-55 "Vom Rechte," 51 William I,King of England,127-30
Slaves,81-82 "ThreeSwiss," story of the,193-94 Von der Artzney bayder Gluck, 67-71 William of St. T hierry,312n54
Smalley,Beryl,45 T huroczy,Janos,122,124-25,272 Vovelle,Michel,5 William II,King of England,50
Smaragdus,81,248 Tobias of Bechyne,2n Wimpfeling,Jakob,194
Smith,Helmut,295 Tomich,Pere,117-18 Wace,43-44,55,84,128,206 Wittenwiler,Heinrich,63,83,101-2,172,
Song of Roland, The, 93,no,141 Traverse,Elizabeth,171 Waldeby,John,51 191
Southern,R. W.,84 Trees,as metaphors,69-70 Waldemar,King of Denmark,199 Work, see Labor
Specht,Henrik,216 Tres Riches Heures, 31,35,144 Walsingham,T homas,60,63,261,264 Wulfstan,Archbishop ofYork,17,22,329n93
Spiegel,Gabrielle,108 Tripartitum, 124-25,273 passim Wulfstan,Saint,222
Spiel von dem alten und Jungen Eidgenossen, Tschudi,Aegidius,192 Walter von der Vogelweide,59 Wydif, John,36,54,85,103,255,261,266,
196,198 Tubero,Ludovicus,274,276 Wasif Sah,Ibrahim ben,89 285
Spit von der Vasnacht, Ein, 64 Tucker,George,336n52 Webe� Max,24,27
Squattriti,Paolo,308m8 Turell,Gabriel,n8,125 Weinstein,Do 1ald,221 Zapolya,Janos,269,274
Stauromachia, 273-74 Turville-Petre,T horlac,127f Wenceslas IV, l \ng of Bohemia,2n Zeckel,George,see Dozsa,Gyorgy
Stedingen,199 Twelve Articles of the Peasants ofSwabia, 252, Wenceslas,Saint,210-n Zelivsky,John,384m40
Stegmiiller,Friedrich,45 260,283 passim Werboczy,Istvan,124-25,273 Zschelletzschky,Herbert,69
Stephen,King of Hungary,n9-20 Tyler,Wat,260 Wernher de Gartenaere,18 Zumthor,Paul,4,300
Stephen of Fougeres,19,24,44,48,53,219 Westminster Chronicle, 265 Zwingli,Ulrich,281,284
Stephen ofTournai,85 Ulpian,73
Stephens,Alexander,96 Ulrich vonTurheim,169
Stewart,Alison,362n81 Unibos, 206
Stoicism,73,312n47 Urgell,bishops of, 185-88
Strauss,Gerald,255 Urner Tellspzel Das, 192-93
"Stricker,Der," 51,184,206 Usatges of Barcelona, 240
Strohm,Paul,259,266
Stiihlingen,283 Vale Royal,Cheshire,263-64
Sturner,Wolfgang,329n88 Vauchez,Andre,221,385moo
Sudbury,Simon,260 Vaux Saint-Cyr,M.-B. de,46
Summerfield,T hea,127 Vegio,Maffeo,142,216
Switzerland,190-99 Venette,Jean de,53
Sylvester II,Pope,n9 Verbeeck,Frans,172
Synod of Coblenz,81 Verson,Normandy,145-47
Synod of Westminster,81 Vezelay,basilica of, 141-42
Szucs,Jeno,41,121,273,278 Viaticum, 161
Vidal de Canellas,241
Tabari,89 Vienna Genesis,91,97
Taborites,255, 258,285 Vilain, use of term,IO
Talmud,on Noah's curse,87-88 Villein, use of term,IO
Tauler,Johannes,213 Villon,Frans:ois,169
Taurinus,273-74 Vincent of Beauvais,85
TeBrake,William,258 "Violet Prank," story of the,151-52
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Freedman, Paul H.
Images of the medieval peasant / Paul Freedman.
p. cm. - Figurae (Stanford, Calif.)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8047-3372-4 (doth : alk. paper). -
ISBN 0-8047-3373-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Literature, Medieval-History and criticism.
2. Peasants in literature. 3. Peasantry.
I. Title. II. Series.
PN682.P35F74 1999
809' .9335208863-dc21
CIP

8 This book is printed on acid-free, recycled paper.

Original printing 1999

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